MI5 court evidence based on lies, official report says
MI5 gave evidence based on “lies” to three courts while defending a violent neo-Nazi spy whose exploits were revealed by the BBC, a damning official report has revealed.
The report, prepared by Sir John Goldring, deputy commissioner of investigative powers, heavily criticizes a number of senior MI5 officials and their organisation.
He found that one senior MI5 officer had repeatedly lied, while another had misled his own colleagues and lied about what he had been told.
The results confirm the BBC’s revelation in February last year that MI5 had lied to the courts, which the security service vehemently denied.
Sir John’s investigation was ordered by the prime minister in September after MI5’s account of what happened was rejected by the High Court as inadequate and unreliable.
His new report will throw MI5 into crisis and could result in contempt of court proceedings and even criminal prosecution.
MI5 Director-General Sir Ken McCallum said: “MI5 recognizes without hesitation the seriousness of our failures in these proceedings.”
“I reiterate my previous apologies to both courts for the inaccurate evidence provided and our slowness in understanding what happened.”
Minister of Internal Affairs Shabana Mahmood said that the findings in the report were very clear.
“It details serious failings by individual MI5 officers that resulted in false evidence being presented to the courts, and criticism of MI5 as an organisation,” he said.
“I am taking urgent action to hold MI5 accountable for these failings, including strengthening my oversight and assurance of their work.”
The inquiry examined how MI5 presented false evidence to three courts that it maintained a key secrecy policy known as ‘neither confirm nor deny’ (NCND) about the agent status of a violent neo-Nazi informant.
MI5 claimed to have maintained the NCND and as a result the courts allowed information to be kept secret from a woman who had been abused by the informant.
But what MI5 said was not true.
MI5 had disclosed the man’s agent status in phone calls as they tried to persuade me not to investigate him in 2020.
A senior MI5 officer known as Constable 2 had tried to cover up for the man by falsely saying he was not an abusive misogynist or a genuine extremist.
He even asked me to meet the manager. In doing so, he repeatedly departed from NCND policy.
The new report finds:
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Senior MI5 officer Constable 2 repeatedly told “lies” which “formed the basis of MI5’s false account” to three courts. He “put forward a completely fanciful explanation” in which he denied telling me that X was an MI5 agent.
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A separate senior MI5 officer, Constable 3, “misled” his own colleagues and did not act in good faith. The report concludes that Constable 2 “bears significant responsibility for the continuation of MI5’s lies” as he “misrepresented” what he had told him. He was not “honest” about the warnings he received from colleagues.
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Witness A, deputy director of MI5, told the courts that his organisation’s witness statements “exaggerated” matters during an important internal meeting and a note about his comments was “misleading”. It therefore “contributed to MI5 continuing to rely on the fake account”.
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Various people in MI5 knew that he had left the NCND, and there was “convincing evidence” in the case files to suggest this had happened, but the lie was nevertheless “allowed to spread and continue”. Later “opportunities to correct the position were missed” by MI5.
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Even MI6 and the foreign intelligence agency were told that the NCND was leaving. Despite this, MI5 repeatedly told the courts that this was not the case, and said in so-called ‘independent’ reviews that no one other than Constable 2 knew what happened and he had forgotten.
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There were “serious and systematic errors in MI5’s conduct” throughout the case.
The case centers on an MI5 informant known as Agent X, a foreign neo-Nazi misogynist who used his security service role as a tool for exploitation.
He forcibly controlled his British partner, known by the pseudonym Beth, and attacked her with a machete. MI5 later helped him go abroad to continue intelligence work while he was under police investigation.
The government took the BBC to court in 2022 in an unsuccessful attempt to block our investigation into X, but won his legal anonymity. Beth subsequently sued MI5 at the Investigative Powers Tribunal (IPT) and sought a review of the decision at the high court in 2024.
The security service, which defended secrecy in all three trials, told the judges that it had always adhered to NCND policy and had never told anyone, including me, the BBC reporter investigating him, whether X was an agent. This was told to the courts in the affidavit of a senior officer named Witness A., the deputy director.
The courts accepted MI5’s arguments. This meant that Beth and everyone else were officially banned from being told that X was an agent and denied access to important evidence. He faced a serious disadvantage and may have lost the case.
Following this decision, I appealed to MI5 in late 2024 and told them they were lying to the courts. MI5 aggressively pursued its position that the NCND was being maintained until they produced evidence, including a recording of one of the interviews with Constable 2, that proved this was untrue.
