Secret tape of BBC phone call proves MI5 gave false evidence in legal proceedings
Lawyers acting for the Attorney General were forced to answer questions in the High Court today (12 February 2025), after it was revealed that a deputy director of MI5 made a false statement in proceedings about an MI5 recruit who terrorised his girlfriend, ‘Beth’.
MI5 has now issued an “unreserved apology” to the BBC accepting that three separate courts were misled by their witness, acknowledging that what happened was a “serious error” for which “MI5 takes full responsibility”.
Centre for Women’s Justice who act for Beth hope that the hearing today will be the first step to reversing MI5’s attempt to hide from both the victim herself, as well as the public, the extent to which they were aware of a key informant perpetrating serious violence against her.
The issue at the heart of this hearing is a so called policy of Neither Confirm Nor Deny that MI5 operate in respect of the activities of informants and undercover operatives in order to protect their identity. However, where they have departed from that policy, it is strongly arguable that they can no longer rely on it.
Background to today’s hearing
In 2022 the then Attorney General, Suella Braverman, applied for an injunction to stop the BBC from airing a disturbing news report about an informant (‘X’), who had violently abused his then partner, Beth while working for MI5. Despite the public interest in exposing these allegations, and alerting women to the threat that X poses, the Government sought to stop this story from being published. [1]
To help her case, the Attorney General relied on evidence from a senior MI5 representative, ‘Witness A’. In one section of his statement, Witness A claimed that MI5 had never confirmed or denied to anyone outside of MI5 whether X was an MI5 informant. The same statement said a BBC journalist had asked MI5 on one occasion whether X was an informant, and that MI5 had declined to confirm or refute that allegation.
In May 2022, following this legal battle, the BBC was able to air a redacted version of the report, titled ‘the Abuser Working for MI5’, which revealed that X had boasted to Beth of the protections offered to him by MI5, and claimed to be above the law. It included video footage of the man – a neo-Nazi extremist, who has made specific threats to sexually abuse and kill children – attacking ‘Beth’ with a machete.
In the same year, Beth started a claim against MI5 in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (‘IPT’), a specialist court. She alleged that MI5 had breached her human rights by recruiting and effectively enabling a man who, they knew (or ought to have known), posed a serious risk of harm to women and girls. Her claim raises questions about MI5’s vetting of X prior to and during his recruitment, and asks whether MI5 even interfered in criminal investigations into her allegations of domestic abuse against X so as to protect their source.
But at a pre-trial hearing in May last year, MI5 argued that it should be excused from providing Beth with a response to her allegations. Relying on its internal policy of ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ (‘NCND’), MI5 maintained that they will never confirm or refute to anyone outside of MI5 whether a person is an MI5 informant – even in a private conversation, and even if the informant himself has openly discussed his recruitment. Relying on this well-known policy, MI5’s lawyers argued that it would jeopardise national security if the Tribunal ordered them to depart from this policy. Accordingly, they argued that they could not be expected even to confirm to Beth, in private, whether her ex-partner had ever worked for MI5.
Beth was left profoundly disappointed when the Tribunal concluded that MI5 could not be forced to depart from its ‘NCND’ policy. As a result of this decision it was clear that Beth would have to be excluded from crucial hearings about her case, unable to see the evidence that MI5 were using against her, and prevented from knowing most of the findings that the Tribunal had made. MI5’s defence would be heard in secret, in a closed courtroom, with only MI5’s lawyers, the judges, and possibly Special Advocates present. Most crucially without Beth being able to challenge anything MI5 said.
Beth was so alarmed by this approach that she applied to the High Court for a judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision.MI5 have opposed her judicial review claim and her case in the IPT has been on hold for months while that review is ongoing.
BBC’s report today
Today however – in a shocking development – the BBC has been able to reveal (publicly, for the first time) that some time ago a senior MI5 official voluntarily telephoned a BBC journalist who, they knew, was investigating X’s activities, and disclosed that X had been working as an informant for MI5.
Rather than applying a policy of ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’, MI5 had in fact willingly volunteered to a journalist that X was an MI5 recruit – seemingly in an effort to dissuade the BBC from investigating X any further. The statement provided by Witness A in support of the Attorney General – and later used by MI5 in Beth’s proceedings, to justify keeping X’s status a secret – is, we now know, untrue.
After learning that the Tribunal had made a decision to allow secrecy in Beth’s proceedings, based on an untrue account of events, the BBC applied to the High Court in 2024 for permission to report the truth, and reveal the false statement made by Witness A. The BBC has revealed that on becoming aware of this application MI5’s lawyers initially doubled down on their client’s position – but that after hearing a secret recording made by the BBC journalist of one conversation with the senior MI5 official, the application was conceded. It appears therefore that the truth has only come to light because of the BBC’s secret audio recording.
The BBC has published extracts from that conversation as part of its news report today, which show that the senior MI5 official made what appeared to be a series of authorised disclosures about X’s informant status, his activities for MI5, and his involvement in an alleged machete attack against Beth.
The hearing today
In a hearing before Mr Justice Chamberlain in the High Court today, Sir James Eadie KC submitted on behalf of the Attorney General that an internal disciplinary investigation was underway which “indicates the seriousness with which this is being taken”. The former head of the Government Legal Service Jonathan Jones KC has also been appointed by the Home Secretary as an “external reviewer” to investigate the circumstances leading to MI5’s false statement.
Commenting on the parties’ submissions, Mr Justice Chamberlain noted that ongoing investigations would need to address whether MI5 had “deliberately” given false evidence in 2022.
In her own legal proceedings, Beth must now await decisions from the Administrative Court and Investigatory Powers Tribunal respectively in the aftermath of this highly relevant new information. She has been in dispute with MI5 for almost a year about its reliance on ‘NCND’ in response to her claim, and engaged in judicial review proceedings which, it now appears, may not have been necessary.
Quotes:
Kate Ellis, a solicitor at Centre for Women’s Justice, who has represented Beth since 2022, and who was interviewed by the BBC for their news report, said:
“Today’s revelations are concerning and truly extraordinary. We now understand that MI5 has misled three courts by giving or relying on false evidence – over a period of several years – and this has allowed them to avoid giving ‘Beth’ any meaningful answers. This is in circumstances where Beth’s ex-partner specifically boasted of his MI5 status to Beth, and used this to abuse her.
“Most concerning of all perhaps is that the truth has only emerged at all because of a secret recording made by the BBC. Until the BBC disclosed this secret tape to MI5, it appears that MI5 and their lawyers were robustly maintaining their original version of events.
“This exceptionally serious situation has wide implications, for Beth’s case and for the general public. It will leave many wondering whether evidence given by MI5 in legal proceedings – which the courts are expected to treat with particular deference, and which is often heard in secret– can ever be considered reliable . It also raises questions about MI5’s willingness to engage, in any meaningful way, with concerns raised about their management of threats to the physical safety of women and girls.”
Harriet Wistrich, Director of Centre for Women's Justice, said:
“The claim brought by Beth against MI5 raises issues of the utmost gravity, in particular highlighting whether MI5 owed her any responsibility to constrain the activities of one of their informants responsible for inflicting serious violence against her. As we have seen in the scandal concerning undercover police engaging in deceitful relationships with the women they spied on, this case raises serious questions regarding the state’s duty in all circumstances to prevent the abuse of women. Reliance on ‘NCND’ should never be a smokescreen for such state complicity.”
ENDS
Notes:
[1]Link to where the judgment, summary judgment, and Injunction Order can be found: https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/attorney-general-for-england-and-wales-v-bbc/
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (“IPT”) is a court set out to hear and investigate allegations of human rights breaches by the UK intelligence services, the Police, and local authorities through their use of covert investigative techniques.
NCND
MI5 has a policy of Neither Confirm Nor Deny (“NCND”) in relation to Covert Human Intelligence Sources, which can include informants and undercover operatives. This means that when asked whether an individual was or is an MI5 informant, they will reply “we can neither confirm nor deny whether XXX has been an MI5 informant”.
Other public authorities have relied on the policy of NCND in matters relating to national security and law enforcement. In some circumstances public authorities have sought to rely on the policy to avoid disclosing unlawful activity. One of the most well-known examples of this is the attempt by the Metropolitan Police Service to rely on the policy of NCND in response to allegations of inappropriate sexual relationships carried out by undercover police officers which is now the subject of a public inquiry.
Beth’s claim in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal
The Centre for Women’s Justice is acting for Beth, X’s former partner in a formal complaint, and linked human rights claim in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal - the Court specifically tasked to oversee MI5’s conduct and allegations against them. In these proceedings Beth is asking the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to investigate MI5’s recruitment and handling of X, and whether any steps were taken to address the clear risk of harm that he posed. She is also arguing that MI5’s conduct may have breached her rights under Articles 2,3, 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in that by recruiting and affording protecting to X, they were effectively enabling X to subject her to serious violence and abuse with impunity.
Previous coverage of these proceedings
Link to previous CWJ coverage
Link to judgment on 9 May 2024