Spycops inquiry probes abusive officer who was ‘misogyny personified’

An abusive undercover cop who one expert called “misogyny personified” is facing scrutiny at the long-running Undercover Policing ‘Spycops’ Inquiry. And far from expressing genuine regret for the damage and pain he caused, he has shown disdain for the process and even tried to paint himself as the victim.

Spycops inquiry shows rampant misogyny

A decades-long political-policing project in service of the rich and powerful unjustifiably targeted hundreds of left-wing groups. One woman speaking out about it previously told the Canary that “institutional sexism” was at the heart of it. Expert Tom Fowler even described it as:

a rape gang that was covering for each other and celebrating the sexual conquest they had of women in the field.

One member of this gang was Rob Hastings (who used the fake name ‘Rob Harrison’). And as Undercover Research Group co-founder Dónal O’Driscoll told Fowler on 25 March, Hastings was one of the spycops who were “misogyny personified“.

The “unspeakable horrors” Hastings inflicted on a woman going by the pseudonym of ‘Maya’ led Fowler to describe him as:

one of the most… genuinely evil human beings I’ve ever encountered.

The #spycops officer Robert Hastings claims that the relationship was two people being difficult with each other. He essentially claims it was her fault

— Tom Fowler (@tombfowler) March 25, 2026

Hastings squirms as his abuse comes under scrutiny

O’Driscoll called Maya’s testimony in recent days:

some of the most shocking evidence heard to date in the inquiry.

And he explained that what happened to her was:

deeply disturbing, deeply misogynist… It was just pure sexual abuse. Horrible to have heard anybody went through this and she went through it at the hands of a serving police officer who was deceiving her all the way.

But as Fowler noted, there’s a pattern of lying from these “professional con men”. And as O’Driscoll added, there’s been “some outrageous lying” during the inquiry. So it was unsurprising to see Hastings behave this way too.

Fowler observed that Hastings had been “incredibly angry” when giving evidence. O’Driscoll also said:

you could see that he was getting angrier and angrier throughout the day… he felt he was being punished. You got this sense that he was like, ‘why am I being held to account? I’m the victim. My marriage failed.’… No acknowledgement that he is a serial cheater.

The inquiry was spot on in instructing a woman as barrister for Hastings' evidence. He can't control his misogyny. Incredible work from Sarah Hemingway. #spycops https://t.co/bXEL2jtsmW

— Donna McLean (@Donna__McLean) March 25, 2026

It seems safe to say that Robert Hastings has done a spectacularly shit job of convincing anyone at all that he isn’t/ wasn’t a controlling, contemptuous, misogynist bastard.#spycops#ACAB pic.twitter.com/jIHcbbVyV8

— COPS (@copscampaign) March 25, 2026

Unapologetic, because ‘left-wing politics is criminality’

Counterfire‘s James Simpson, meanwhile, referred to the public laughter that some of Hastings’s absurd responses got. Simpson told Fowler on 24 March that:

some of the responses from Hastings were quite frankly ridiculous… Absolutely some nonsense that he was coming up with.

Fowler highlighted that Hastings kept trying to bring the focus back onto himself and how “catastrophic” his behaviour had been for him personally:

he has very much painted himself as the victim in all this

And at the same time, Fowler continued:

at no point does [Hastings] accept that what he did might have been an overreach. He’s absolutely convinced that all his reporting is absolutely justified.

This is despite him having collected extensive, unnecessary information about targets’ families, jobs, and countless other details.

Hastings simply treated the unjustifiably intrusive monitoring and indiscriminate data collection, Fowler said, as “fair game”. Part of the justification for the spycop, Fowler added, was that he saw left-wing politics as “some form of criminality”.

In reality, the spycops scandal was something that changed the whole fabric of the country for the worse. And it’s important for us all to hold the state accountable for that. So the more Hastings and his abusive colleagues squirm, the better.

Featured image via the Canary