Latest news with #DameVictoriaSharp
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
MI5 lied 'deliberately and repeatedly' in neo-Nazi spy case, BBC tells High Court
MI5 lied "deliberately and repeatedly" as it tried to defend its handling of a neo-Nazi agent who abused women, the BBC has told a panel of High Court corporation argued the threshold for contempt of court proceedings against MI5 and three individual officers had been James Eadie KC, acting for MI5, issued an "unreserved apology" on behalf of the Security Service but said the "errors that had been made had not been deliberate".The three judges - England and Wales' most senior judge, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr, President of the King's Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Chamberlain - reserved judgement on the case until a later date. The case, which began in 2022 with an attempt to block the BBC from publishing a story about the neo-Nazi agent, has become a major test of how the courts view MI5 and the credibility of its gave evidence to three courts, saying that it had never breached its core secrecy policy of neither confirming nor denying (NCND) that a man known only as X was a state in February, the BBC was able to prove with notes and recordings of phone calls with MI5 that this was MI5 officer had confirmed the agent's status as he tried to persuade me to drop an investigation into X, a violent neo-Nazi misogynist who used his Security Service role to coerce and terrify his former girlfriend, known publicly as "Beth".At Tuesday's hearing MI5 acknowledged that the NCND policy could no longer be maintained in this policy has meant significant amounts of evidence has been confined to closed hearings which neither the BBC nor Beth - who has brought a separate case complaining about MI5 - are permitted to Kilroy KC, representing Beth, said her client agreed with the BBC that the threshold for contempt of court proceedings had been met. There had been "copious levels of dishonesty" which had not been acknowledged in MI5's investigations into how it came to give false BBC's barrister, Jude Bunting KC, submitted to the court that it should consider contempt of court proceedings against MI5 itself, and three individual Security Service officers - including one who confirmed X's status as an agent on the phone to me and a senior officer known as Witness A who gave the false evidence to accounts of how it came to give false evidence "lack candour" and there is a "real concern" that the court has not been given a full explanation of what went wrong, Mr Bunting said an external review by the government's former chief lawyer Sir Jonathan Jones KC did not speak to two crucial James Eadie KC, representing the Attorney General for the Security Service, offered an "unreserved apology on behalf of MI5"."Everyone from the director general downwards acknowledges the seriousness caused," he said. MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum immediately informed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper as soon as the matter was drawn to his attention, Sir James has been "a full and comprehensive investigation" which came to the conclusion that "the errors that had been made had not been deliberate" and that "there had been no misleading or lying", MI5's barrister said that contempt of court proceedings "would not be appropriate".
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
MI5 neo-Nazi spy: Judge had 'no confidence' in Security Service's account of false evidence
MI5 is facing fresh scrutiny in the case of a violent neo-Nazi agent after a High Court judge said he had "no confidence" in the Security Service's account of how a senior officer gave false of a court hearing on Tuesday, the BBC can reveal Mr Justice Chamberlain ordered MI5 to hand over secret documents about the also said there was a further issue about the "correctness" of new evidence provided by a very senior MI5 hearing comes four months after the BBC revealed MI5 had lied to three courts about a misogynistic agent known as X. The agent used his MI5 role to coerce and terrorise his girlfriend, attacking her with a machete. The most senior judge in England and Wales, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr, and the President of the King's Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp, will now join Mr Justice Chamberlain to consider what, if any, action should be taken about MI5's false are a range of potential options, from accepting the conclusions of MI5's investigations to initiating contempt of court proceedings against MI5 itself or individual officers - or contempt of court proceedings are referred to the Attorney General, currently Lord Hermer, but in this case, he is technically representing about MI5's internal investigation into how it came to give the false evidence, which were included in the secret documents given to the court, may also be made public on gave the evidence in 2022 after then-Attorney General Suella Braverman sought an injunction to stop a BBC investigation about X. She won him legal anonymity but failed to prevent the story being published. During that case, a senior spy known only as Witness A said MI5 had stuck to its policy to "neither confirm nor deny" (NCND) that X was an MI5 agent during conversations with me in 2020, when I was investigating X's in February this year, the BBC was able to reveal Witness A's evidence was fact, MI5 had disclosed X's status in phone calls to me, which I had made notes of and recorded, as the Security Service tried to persuade me to drop my false claim was repeated in two other courts considering a legal claim against the Security Service by X's former girlfriend, known publicly as "Beth".During hearings in recent weeks, Mr Justice Chamberlain raised the new concerns regarding MI5's account of how it came to give the false concerns centred on accounts of the two investigations launched after the BBC exposed MI5's false claims in February this year - an internal one, and an external review by the government's former chief lawyer Sir Jonathan Jones KC, commissioned by Home Secretary Yvette April, the court and the BBC were provided with a witness statement by the very senior MI5 officer - known as Witness B - purporting to summarise the investigations. They were also given an open, non-secret version of Sir Jonathan's external the court can receive sensitive information - and had security-cleared barristers, known as special advocates, acting on behalf of the BBC - it was not given a secret, closed version of the external review, nor a copy of the internal investigation report and its underlying a request by the special advocates, Mr Justice Chamberlain made clear he wanted disclosure of the closed version of the external review. During a later hearing he ordered that MI5 also hand over the internal investigation report described by Witness B, as well as policy documents and interview notes with MI5 officers. He also raised concerns about whether the open, non-secret documents originally provided to the court and the BBC were an accurate reflection of the closed said Witness B had claimed the original open version of the report was a "fair and accurate" reflection of the closed version. But, having read the closed report, Mr Justice Chamberlain gave his provisional view that: It contained "potentially significant material" not in the open version of the reportThis material "raises real questions about whether Witness B could properly rely on the open version as a fair and accurate report of the closed report"Because of "the piecemeal way this has come to light", he had "no confidence that the court has been given the full picture of how Witness A came to give false evidence"New material raised "a separate issue about the correctness of Witness B's recent evidence in these proceedings" The court will also hear on Tuesday whether MI5 will be able to continue to apply its policy of NCND in relation to the agent status of X within the legal case itself, despite publicly accepting it had departed from the policy in phone calls to NCND policy has allowed MI5 to withhold material from the BBC as well as the separate case brought by X's former girlfriend had complained about MI5 to a specialist court, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), and then sought a judicial review in a third court of an IPT ruling that allowed MI5 to apply meant that material confirming X's agent status has been confined to secret hearings, where she was represented by the tribunal's own barristers and her lawyers were excluded.
