Lakey Arthur

Arthur Lakey

 

 

Arthur Francis Lakey  is now known to have been an agent planted inside the Communist Party from its foundation in 1920, who operated under the name of Albert Allen.

 

Lakey had been a detective sergeant, active in the Police and Prison Officers Union, who was dismissed with many others during 1919 police strike.

 

Although active in the Party until 1922, he was then employed the next year by the virtually autonomous UK arm of the Federated Press of America at its offices at 50 Outer Temple

 

Operating until March 1928 and established by W N Ewer, the FPA provided soft intelligence for Soviet Russia. FPA London basically acted as a post box for mail from sources in French Government circles, sent to FPA for onward transmission to Soviet representatives in London.

 

Lakey appears to have run a counter-intelligence operation by obtaining information from police sources at Scotland Yard and carrying out surveillance on staff and the premises of the various British security forces.

 

Having shifted across mainly to Soviet intelligence, Lakey was replaced in 1924 as the main spy inside the Communist Party by Jim Finney, code named “Furniture Dealer”, although he kept up some role in the Party.

 

His cover may have be blown after he found out and revealed that two Special Branch policemen at Scotland Yard had been aiding the Communist Party.  Also former sympathisers who had been in the National Union of Police and Prison Officers, their main role had been to advise the Party when its premises were to be raided, so that incriminating material – evidence of sedition – could be removed.

An arrest of Inspector Ginhoven and Sergeant Jane and ex-policeman Walter E Dale followed, which must have rebounded on Lakey. 

 

No doubt as a result of his effectiveness paling, Lakey disappeared from the scene around 1930, about the time MI5 assumed control over surveillance and penetration activities against the domiciled British Communist Party.