Police have agreed to disclose secret reports to a mother who was spied on by officers as she sought answers into her son's death in Kingston almost 18 years ago.

Sukhdev Reel, 65, was monitored by undercover Metropolitan Police officers as she campaigned to find out what happened to her son Ricky Reel, 20.

The Brunel University student vanished after going to Options nightclub in Clarence Street, now rebranded as Pryzm, on October 15, 1997. His body was pulled from the Thames a week later.

Mrs Reel has always maintained her son was murdered, although Kingston police have always insisted there was no evidence to suggest foul play.

Last year, after she was told she had been spied on, Mrs Reel launched a petition calling for a public inquiry into undercover police investigations. It has so far been signed by more than 78,000 people.

This week, the retired council worker said she had now been invited to read redacted reports of the police's information on her.

Mrs Reel said: "Out of the blue they have said we can view the reports.

"I don’t know what they are going to say but the reports will be redacted so it is not a full, frank disclosure.

"We are disappointed but not surprised - it has been their attitude all along.

"We want to see what the reports contain and how many of them there were and who had been collating them - what was the point of them?

"What were they going to use them for? What was the reason for spying on us? To discredit our family campaign for justice? We don’t really know.

"Maybe they think 'we’ll give her a bit and quieten her'. But we need answers. Just by showing us a piece of paper it does not mean anything.

"Resources should have been spent on investigating Ricky's murder not on spying on us as an innocent family. My son and our family were the victims, not perpetrators.

“We are only one of a number of families all of whom deserve an explanation.

"We are hoping the reports will shed some light about what was going on. We are going to go with an open mind."

She said she expected to view the documents in the next few weeks.

A police spokesman would not confirm Mrs Reel's claims about the reports.

On the night he vanished, Ricky Reel and his friends were racially abused by a group of white men.

Mrs Reel has previously said her son’s disappearance was not treated seriously by Kingston police officers, who initially suggested he may have run away from an arranged marriage or to be with a boyfriend.

She also said police in Kingston and her hometown West Drayton "passed her around like a football" by suggesting it came under the other’s jurisdiction.

Mrs Reel’s petition calls for a public inquiry, a police apology, assurances that spying on family justice campaigns has been stopped and legal aid for the families involved.

Other families that were spied on by police after losing their loved ones include the families of Stephen Lawrence and Jean Charles de Menezes.

John Azah, chairman of both the Kingston Race and Equalities Council and the Kingston Safer Neighbourhood Board, chaired a Justice for Ricky Reel campaign in 1998, and sat on a panel overseeing the second police investigation into the death. Last year it emerged his name was also included in data collected by undercover police officers gathering information on the family. 

Anyone with information about the death of Ricky Reel should call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.