Refusal to dub China a threat was ‘total roadblock’ to spying case, says prosecution’s lead barrister
The prosecution’s lead lawyer said the government’s refusal to identify China as an active threat to national security in its evidence “completely hindered” the case against two alleged spies from moving forward.
Tom Little KC told MPs and colleagues on the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) that the question of whether China is a threat to national security is “the million-dollar question in the case” and the failure to define it as such “effectively brings this case to a halt”.
Meanwhile, director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson suggested that deputy national security adviser Matt Collins, who gave evidence on behalf of the government, knew the case would collapse if he did not provide evidence that China was a threat.
“It has been made clear that the evidence we are seeking is critical,” Mr Parkinson told MPs and colleagues. “The language used was: ‘We don’t want to get into a situation where the case is going to be dismissed at halftime.’
“Latest, [Mr Collins] He would have understood this because it was clearly stated at the meeting on September 9 that the case could not be continued due to his failure to give the desired positive answer.”
He said failure to say that China was an active threat to national security was “fatal” to the case.
The collapse of the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary investigator, and Christopher Berry, who both deny charges under the Official Secrets Act, has raised questions about whether Britain is willing to confront China at a time when Sir Keir Starmer’s government is seeking closer ties with the country.
While Mr Parkinson insisted that the failure of the case was not “a matter of blame”, he also told the JCNSS that he felt “there should be no difficulty in answering the question we are actually asking: was China an active threat to national security at the time in question?”
“We thought this would be evidence that could be presented relatively easily, but it turned out to be a sticking point,” he said.
“It took 14 months to get the answer to that question, and the answer was no. And it took quite a lot of effort on our part to get the answer. But what you can’t do as a prosecutor is just tell people what to say. You can only ask questions openly.”
“More than the evidence given, it was that the answer got to the heart of the matters and was fatal to the case.”
Speaking about his meeting with the deputy national security adviser (DNSA), Mr Little said it was “clear to me that he would not have said that China posed an active threat to national security at that time”.
“That was the answer to what I saw as the million-dollar question in the case, and that was the position I carefully reflected when he said that the current investigation into these allegations was effectively unsustainable.”
Giving evidence later in the evening, Mr Collins said he had refrained from describing China as a threat “broadly speaking” because this reflected government policy at the time of alleged spying on behalf of Beijing by the two men.
DNSA said: “What I tried to do in all my statements was to show how many threats China poses to our national security.
“In the first deposition, I laid out the scope of the espionage threat, in the second and third deposition, I laid out cyber threats, economic security threats, and threats to our democratic institutions. What I didn’t do was describe or label China as a threat in a blanket term.”
He added: “When I started this process I was always clear that I needed to be in line with government policy at the time.
“I quoted extensively from a wide range of government policy documents at the time, and at that time the government did not go so far as to label China as a threat in general terms.”
Mr Collins also said he was “surprised” to learn that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had dropped the case against two alleged Chinese spies and told MPs and colleagues that he had only become aware the case could collapse on September 3.
The hearing also saw Mr Collins tell MPs and colleagues that he had been asked by counter-terrorism police to include a line in his witness statements about the current government’s position “for fear of a difference between my witness statements and the new government’s policy”.
It came after Mr Collins included a sentence in his witness statements that mimicked language in Labour’s manifesto, leading to accusations of political interference in the case.
Asked why the full statement of Labour’s China policy was included in his later statements, Mr Collins said: “I was asked by the Counter Terrorism Police (CTP) to include a reference to the new government’s policy out of fear that there would be a gap between witness statements and the new government’s policy. I did this.”
“Actually, I started from a response to a parliamentary question rather than from the Labor Party manifesto.”
When asked whether he was under political pressure to refer to the Labor Party’s position, he replied: “No. As with all my witness statements, the CTP asked me to provide evidence to support the case to ensure a successful prosecution.”
