{nomultithumb}A former Oxford student, Toby Kendall, has been uncovered as a spy working undercover in an anti-aviation group.
The 24 year old graduate, who studied Oriental Studies at Wadham College, aroused the suspicions of activists in the group Plane Stupid and was exposed as a spy working for C2i International, a private investigation agency.
Kendall joined the London based group last July. Plane Stupid is a network of groups which protest against airport expansion and aviation’s climate impact, who last Sunday staged a protest on the roof of the Scottish Parliament against plans to expand Scottish airports. Kendall told fellow group members that his name was ‘Ken Tobias’ and became a committed activist, allegedly always being the first to arrive at meetings and constantly pushing for more direct action.
Kendall’s excessive enthusiasm and expensive dress sense raised suspicions amongst activists. They discovered that he wasn’t on the electoral register for the area in which he claimed to live. The rugby club which he said he played for held no record of a ‘Ken Tobias’ either.
The group began a mole hunt and fed Kendall false information about direct action, and within 48 hours UK airport security had been alerted. The content and locations of meetings that Kendall attended also appeared in the Evening Standard.
Activists confronted Kendall earlier this month and asked to see some ID but he claimed to have lost his wallet. Eventually Kendall was identified when the activists showed an Oxford acquaintance his photograph. A Bebo social networking profile provided further evidence that Toby Kendall worked as an analyst in ‘security and investigations’ at C2i International.
In a statement, Plane Stupid activist Tamsin Omond said, “The aviation industry brought its special brand of bumbling incompetence to the task of spying on us. The secret agent was more Austin Powers than James Bond though the question still remains, who paid the espionage agency?”
BAA, which owns Heathrow and has repeatedly been targeted by Plane Stupid, denied having any relationship with C2i or with Toby Kendall but admitted that it had rejected an invitation by C2i to offer its services. C2i claim to have been unaware of Kendall’s infiltration of Plane Stupid, stating that he was employed to carry out counter-surveillance such as debugging company offices.
Kendall emailed Plane Stupid the day after he was confronted expressing his upset at how the group dealt with the situation. He said “As you guys made clear [the accusation] is not personal, but I can’t help but feel that the manner by which you went about it was aggressive and cold…it is now clear to me that at no point did you consider approaching me in a friendly way first”
He added that he could no longer trust Plane Stupid enough to volunteer for the group again, “even with my proof of ID I don’t feel you would trust me and to be honest with the way in which you approached this, I do not feel that I can trust you…I am very sorry to have to leave it this way and I can assure you that I came into the group with a pure heart wanting to make a difference.”
