'Her life was turned inside out by the state': play tells stories of spycops' victims

There's one moment from the inquiry into undercover police officers known as "spycops" that sticks in the theatre director Rhiannon White's mind.

- Nadia Khomami

It was during the questioning of Bob Lambert, an officer who had deceived at least four women into sexual relationships in the 1980s, and fathered a child with one of them.

"Lambert's lack of attention to detail was shocking; the whole thing seemed like a process to him. Whereas Belinda Harvey, one of the women, meticulously remembered every single detail of their relationship, every feeling, every thought. She said she was in her early 20s when she met him, and she was basically groomed into activism by him. This is someone whose life was completely turned inside out and upside down by the state. This is someone who was raped by the state."

White, the artistic director of the Cardiff and Bradford-based theatre company Common/Wealth, is directing a new play based on the scandal and public inquiry.