Robert Lambert

Robert Lambert MBE is a British academic and former undercover police officer. He served in the controversial Special Demonstration Squad and posed as a left-wing animal rights activist from 1983 to 1988, fathering a child with an activist, who was unaware of his true identity, during his deployment. Both the woman and her child have needed psychiatric treatment as a result, and both have been awarded damages against the Police. Until December 2015 Lambert was a lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of St Andrews and a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University's John Grieve Centre for Policing, but was forced to resign after details of his past emerged. He has subsequently pursued a career as an independent academic. Career Lambert joined the Metropolitan Police Service in London in 1977 and joined Special Branch by 1980. He was appointed to a management position in the Special Demonstration Squad following his undercover work and was head of the Muslim Contact Unit from its establishment in 2002. Following his retirement as a detective inspector he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours for "services to the police". After his career in the police force, he became a lecturer at the University of St Andrews and a part-time senior lecturer at the London Metropolitan University. Activists mounted a campaign to remove him from these posts. He resigned from them in December 2015. He was co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre in the Department of Politics at Exeter University until August 2011.