The government’s apparent reasoning for failing to support the China spy prosecutions has been branded ‘nonsense’ by an intelligence expert — as new evidence of Beijing’s espionage came to light.
Whitehall advisers have been blamed for the collapse of the case against Christopher Berry and ex-parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash for allegedly providing ‘information prejudicial to the interests of the state’.
They had denied the espionage charges, relating to a period between December 2021 and February 2023, before the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced last month that they had been dropped.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) claimed that prosecutors were not given vital statements saying China is an ‘active threat’ to national security despite having tried for months to obtain the legal cornerstone.
The missing testimony undermined the charges against the pair under the Official Secrets Act 1911, according to Stephen Parkinson.
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The scale of China-sponsored intelligence gathering was underlined by a British barrister, who is part of a human rights tribunal on organ harvesting, telling Metro today that he had been hacked in the manner of a ‘hotel proprietor using a key to open rooms.’
Reasons for ‘extraordinary’ situation
Professor Anthony Glees, a security and intelligence expert, assesses that Sir Keir Starmer’s government has tried to use legal technicalities to avoid identifying China as an ‘enemy’ of the UK in court.
‘There are a number of reasons why we should be in this extraordinary situation,’ he said. ‘What the government is telling us is entirely preposterous, even considered on its own terms.
‘The government is saying that effectively, at the time these alleged offences were committed, the 1911 Official Secrets Act was in force, and it talks about information useful to an enemy.
‘The National Security Act came into force in July 2023, and there is an offence of assisting a foreign intelligence service, but that can’t be used because the alleged offences took place before that date.
‘However the Official Secrets Act still stands. It doesn’t define an enemy. It does not mean a country with which we are at war. It means a country that we, the UK, believe is acting in a hostile way towards us.’
Mr Glees believes that a High Court decision in the Bulgarian spy ring case, which took place after the arrests and caused the CPS to seek the new statements, should not have hampered the prosecutions.
‘The law that has to be used is the law that is in effect at the time the offences are committed,’ he said.
‘There can be no doubt that the law that applied at the time was the Official Secrets Act 1911.
‘Throughout the Cold War, the Act was used to prosecute people spying for the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries with whom we were not officially at war.’
‘China not identified as an active threat’
The case collapsed just before trial after prosecutors tried in vain to obtain the further testimony, according to Mr Parkinson.
In a letter to the home affairs and justice committees made public by the CPS, he said that although new statements had been obtained, ‘none of these stated that at the time of the offence China presented a threat to national security.’ Mr Parkinson also defended the original decision to charge the case in April 2024, which he said was ‘correct’.
He referenced the High Court decision a few weeks later, whereby an ‘enemy’ under the Act was defined as a country which represents a threat to the national security of the UK at the time offences are committed.
Those who were approached in order to ensure the case met the new criteria are reportedly national security advisers in Whitehall.
Mr Cash, 30, a former director of the China Research Group think-tank, and Mr Berry, 33, were arrested in March 2023 and the following year charged with passing politically sensitive information to a Chinese intelligence agent. They have both denied all the allegations.
Mr Glees, of the University of Buckinghamshire, told Metro that he did not accept that the government had acted for cold legal reasons alone.
‘The real reasons could be down to the economy, with it being accepted that Brexit did huge financial damage,’ he said.
‘The government may have decided that trade with China is the only hope of getting economic growth, and therefore we mustn’t upset the Chinese.
‘Sir Keir may have been told by China that if Britain says they are an enemy then a deal is off. Equally, there may have been a discussion between the intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6. One or both of the agencies may have an interest in not disclosing the sources that were used.
‘The only thing we can be certain of is that the explanation we have been given by the government is a load of old cobblers.’
‘Secretive corridors of power’
Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, barrister and chair of The China Tribunal, also detects smoke and mirrors at play.
‘The law now requires that for prosecution the party for whom spying was done is an enemy,’ he said.
‘We know from just general reading how the British governments of the last 10 years have changed their attitude to China, from wishing to be China’s best friend, to China being a threat to our national interests, and then back again to trying to be friends, or at least not upsetting Beijing too much and wanting to be China’s trading partner.
‘It seems to be unsurprising, if regrettable, that the government made the decision in line with its political assessment, about which I express no view one way or the other.
‘It wasn’t prepared to have China categorised as the enemy in cross-examination simply for the purpose of establishing guilt against one or both of these individuals.’
Sir Geoffrey has been sanctioned by China and was himself warned by GHCQ a few years ago that his email had been hacked by the country.
His work with the tribunal, an independent organisation evaluating evidence of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in the country, may have attracted Beijing’s interest.
Further evidence of Chinese espionage
‘Obviously I share the public’s general concerns about the Chinese embassy being developed on the site of the Royal Mint and spying in the most general sense on us,’ Sir Geoffrey said.
‘I was told a few years back by GCHQ that I, along with many other people, had had my emails hacked by China.
‘They likened it to a hotel proprietor having a pass key to all the rooms and going inside to see what was in there.
‘Frankly, there was nothing terribly exciting about my emails and I updated my security on the account. I have heard nothing back from them since and haven’t been aware of any particular consequences.
‘But I’m afraid that, in this instance, the two men accused of spying must be released from the judicial process, that’s just the way it is.’
Sir Geoffrey added: ‘Another question this raises is whether the government is using excuses to restrict information from the voting public.
‘The corridors of power are by practice, secretive, and we are not told anything of substance.’
MP Chris Philp has taken up the case in parliament and said it is ‘astonishing’ that the charges have been dropped, citing a CPS press summary claiming that a Chinese intelligence agent ‘commissioned at least 34 reports’ from one of the defendants.
Sir Keir, himself a former DPP, responded to the fallout by saying that the statements were prepared on the basis of the Conservative government’s stance on China in 2023, which described the country as merely an ‘an epoch-defining challenge’ rather than an enemy.
A government spokesperson said: ‘The decision not to proceed with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act was made by the Crown Prosecution Service entirely independently of government.
‘Our evidence did not materially change from the time it was first provided in 2023 until the cases were dropped in 2025.
‘We are disappointed the decision did not proceed.’
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