Chris Greany has taking over the running of the so-called "domestic extremism" unit in wake of the Mark Kennedy controversy

A new police chief is now in charge of running undercover officers in protest groups.

Detective Chief Superintendent Christoper Greany has been appointed to be in charge of the police's so-called "domestic extremism" unit.

He has spent much of his career in counter-terrorism and intelligence, according to this biography of him.

Recently he was in charge of Operation Withern, the investigation into crimes committed in London during last August's riots.

You can see him taking about the progress of the operation in this video.

He joined the Met in 1987 and had a spell as head of counter terrorism in the City of London Police, according to that same biography.

Officially he is head of the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU), which is now run by Scotland Yard.

Greany takes over from Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway who had been in charge since late 2010.

Tudway had in turn replaced Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell who had been appointed in 2004.

Setchell was ultimately responsible for the management of Mark Kennedy, the spy who infiltrated the environment movement for seven years.

Many questions about the running of Kennedy still remain unanswered, such as why was Kennedy allowed to remain undercover for a longer period of time than usual, why was it justified for him to spy on green campaigners, and whether there was proper care of his mental welfare. There has been speculation that the departure of Setchell was in some way connected to the management of Kennedy.

We would be interested to hear more about that if that is true.

According to the government, the National Domestic Extremism Unit is now in charge of the three "domestic extremism" units which had been controlled by ACPO until January 2011.

One of these units, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, infiltrated Kennedy and other police spies into political campaigns.

The Home Office admits that the formation of the National Domestic Extremism Unit is a "rebranding" exercise. It comes as the police have been compelled to clean up the running of undercover operations in the protest movement.

The remit and responsibilities of the unit remain unchanged however.