MI5 issues unreserved apology for providing false evidence in neo-Nazi agent case
A High Court judge has ordered the UK’s internal security service MI5 to hand over secret documents after saying he had “no confidence” in its explanation of how a senior officer gave false evidence to the court. MI5 today offered an “unreserved” apology to the High Court saying there had been “failings and errors” in legal proceedings related to the case of a misogynistic neo-Nazi MI5 agent who used his role as a tool of coercion against his girlfriend, known publicly as 'Beth', who he even attacked with a machete.
In 2022, then-Attorney General Suella Braverman went to the court in London to stop the BBC airing a programme that would name the agent. It failed but injunction was made to prevent the corporation disclosing information likely to identify the man, referred to only as “X”, though Mr Justice Chamberlain said the BBC could still air the programme and the key issues without identifying him. At a hearing in February, the court heard that part of the written evidence provided by MI5 was false.
Today Sir James Eadie KC, representing the Attorney General, made an “unreserved apology and contrition on behalf of MI5” for the incorrect evidence that was provided.
He added: “I am not here to seek to excuse or diminish the seriousness of that position.
“Everyone from the Director General onwards acknowledges the seriousness of what has occurred.”
The written witness statement said the Security Service had maintained its policy of neither confirming nor denying (NCND) the identities of intelligence sources.
However, the BBC said MI5 disclosed X’s status to one of its reporters, but then said it had kept to the NCND policy.
Sir James said there had been internal investigations since, and the “first and most obvious conclusion” led to the “unequivocal apology”.
He added that there had been failings that have been “properly identified” by the investigations.
Sir James also said that criticism had been made that records of conversations with the press, about this subject matter, had not been created and maintained “despite the obvious, clear and serious importance of doing so”.
He added that the creation of contemporaneous documents was the “best guard” against errors being made and that lessons had been learned.
Sir James said the court can be “properly satisfied” a full investigation had taken place, and it had concluded that the “errors had not been deliberate” and that “there had been no deliberate misleading or lying”.
He also said there had been proper accountability for the errors, including in public, “to the maximum extent possible”.
Jude Bunting KC, for the BBC, told the court on Tuesday that the person – person B – who gave the false evidence did “deliberately and repeatedly lie”.
He continued that the evidence also suggests that there was a “widespread” understanding within MI5 that this person had departed from NCND.
Mr Bunting added that person B had departed from NCND in a way which was “detailed and surprising, and that he had only been authorised to stray from the policy when talking to a “trusted MI5 source”.
The hearing before the Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Chamberlain, who will decide what action should be taken against MI5, is due to conclude this afternoon.
