As if by magic dozens of truncheons appeared and they mercilessly thrashed him

There's nothing remotely funny about the sleazy world of secret police, smears and systemic corruption that's finally coming to light after the Stephen Lawrence case.

But, then again, you'd need a heart of stone not to laugh at the fate of the deep state's most notorious unmasked secret policeman and agent provocateur, Mark Kennedy, set upon whilst simply minding his own business, (which consisted of lying, spying and assuming the false identity of an environmental activist named Mark Stone):

When protesters watched horrified as the man they knew as Mark Stone was beaten up by five police officers, they would not have guessed what was actually going on. For the truth was that the police were beating up one of their own, putting him in hospital with a broken finger, a prolapsed disc and a big cut across his head. Stone was really Mark Kennedy, an undercover police officer in the middle of a seven-year covert mission to infiltrate and disrupt the environmental movement...

...According to his account, he rushed to protect a protester who was being hit on her legs with a baton by police.

"They kicked and beat me. They had batons and pummelled my head. One officer repeatedly stamped on my back," he told the Guardian last year. He complained that he "experienced a lot of unjust policing" and was at times "appalled at being a police officer".

Ironically, the police were there only because he had secretly tipped them off about the protesters' plans – just one of the numerous occasions he fed his handlers intelligence about the activists. 

The Guardian

Beneath the intimidation, bluster, lies and corruption, authoritarianism almost always has something ineptly comic at its core, like Vladimir Putin with his shirt off. The surreal absurdity of the agent provocateur is a particularly deep mine of black humour:

With a geranium behind each ear and his face painted with gay cabalistic symbols, six foot eight seventeen stone police sergeant Geoff Bull looked jolly convincing as he sweated and grunted through a vigorous twist routine at the Frug À Go-Go bierkeller. His hot serge trousers flapped wildly over his enormous plastic sandals as he jumped and jumped and gyrated towards a long-haired man. 'Uh, excuse me, man, I have reason to believe you can turn me on.'

He leered suggestively.

As if by magic dozens of truncheons appeared and they mercilessly thrashed him.

Poor Geoff, what a turnout for the books.

Rhinocratic Oaths - The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band

Comedy and seriousness are not mutually exclusive categories and there are, of course, serious issues behind this sinister farce:

...the big questions are who and why. Who invented our counter democratic secret police? Why were they given free rein to conduct illegal activity? Why was such a long operation above the law? Its higher purpose should be named.