Truth is stranger than...

The case which provided some of the inspiration for Necessity's Door has just come to court, and some of the details now being revealed are more lurid and hair-raising than anything I could have invented.  You can read the full report on the BBC web page, but basically the allegations involve several police officers who, whilst working undercover, are said to have befriended women, tricked them into having sex, and in one case apparently even attended a family funeral.

I suspect this case will run and run.  The Metropolitan Police want it held behind closed doors, for obvious reasons.  (Nobody likes it when their employees are accused of nefarious practices, least of all when those employees are themselves supposed to be upholders of the law.)  The women who were allegedly wronged, on the other hand, want every last detail made as public as possible.  They say this is to highlight the issue of "police misconduct and the extent to which police officers can invade the personal, psychological, and bodily integrity of members of the general population"; although you can't help wondering, cynically, if they're also trying to win themselves larger amounts of compensation.  (And of course, they're quietly ignoring the fact that if they hadn't been involved in illegal activities themselves, they would never have been targeted by the undercover officers in the first place.)

It's all rather sleazy, and does indeed raise interesting issues about just how far the police should go in pursuing criminals, but it's going to be fascinating watching the case unfold.  If nothing else, reading about all the salacious details might just sow the seeds for another book...