MI5 and its director general Sir Ken McCallum have avoided legal action after spies lied to judges about a neo-Nazi agent who threatened his girlfriend with a machete.
Senior High Court judges said it ‘would not be in the public interest’ to initiate contempt of court proceedings over the agency’s dishonesty.
The incorrect evidence was used in a successful bid for an injunction against the BBC in 2022, which prevented it from airing a documentary naming Agent X – a Right-wing extremist who used his links to MI5 to abuse his partner, known as Beth.
MI5 maintained that the information was accurate for three years but later admitted that it was wrong before paying compensation and issuing a public apology.
In a statement after today’s ruling, Sir Ken welcomed the High Court’s decision not to bring contempt proceedings but accepted the judgment ‘underlines MI5’s serious failures in this case’.
‘I repeat my apology for those failures, and for the additional distress they caused to Beth,’ he said. ‘The High Court has not initiated contempt proceedings. That is welcome. Meanwhile our work inside MI5 to learn all lessons continues at pace.
‘Our responsibility as MI5 is clear. The courts, and those charged with scrutinising us, must have confidence that information we provide is accurate and complete. That confidence now needs to be re-earned.
‘In this instance the Agency I lead fell badly short. But I would not want this matter, deeply serious though it is, to obscure the vital importance of MI5’s mission.’
In July, the Deputy Investigatory Powers Commissioner, Sir John Goldring, found ‘serious and systemic failings’ by MI5 and that one officer, known only as Officer 2, lied about his role in the incident.
Sir Ken McCallum speaking last month at Thames House, MI5’s London headquarters
A hearing last month was told that MI5, Sir Ken and Officer 2 should face contempt of court proceedings, with lawyers for one of the women allegedly abused by Agent X claiming that there were ‘repeated efforts to prevent the truth emerging’.
Anyone found to be in contempt can receive a prison sentence of up to two years, or a fine.
Charlotte Kilroy, KC, representing Beth, said in written submissions in the High Court that the false evidence did not emanate from one individual or a ‘bad apple’ but was ‘sustained and long-lasting’.
She said: ‘There have been repeated efforts to prevent the truth emerging. The reality of the dishonesty and false evidence that has taken place has only emerged because MI5 was faced with incontrovertible proof of its wrongdoing.’
Ms Kilroy claimed that an MI5 officer ‘knew that his dishonesty was likely to result in an interference with the administration of justice’, and others who knew of the false evidence ‘either did not take steps to ensure correct evidence was given, or when they did tell their superiors the truth, the information they provided was ignored’.
She said there was ‘strong and cogent evidence’ that MI5 officers may have committed contempt, and that the service ‘benefited from the dishonesty of its officers’.
But Tim Otty, KC, representing MI5, said there was ‘no basis’ to hold Sir Ken vicariously liable, adding that there was no ‘strong case’ that MI5 could be corporately liable in criminal contempt proceedings.
He said the spy agency was fully committed to making changes, but that it was ‘not now necessary or appropriate to proceed with contempt proceedings’.
Reading a summary of today’s decision, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said that any court proceedings ‘should follow consideration by the police, and consideration of charges by the Crown Prosecution Service’.
Baroness Carr, sitting with Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Chamberlain, continued that such proceedings would be ‘unlikely to do more than duplicate’ the findings of Sir John’s report, which found ‘serious and systemic failings’ by MI5.
The identity of Agent X, a foreign national involved in neo-Nazi movements, remains unknown and he is understood to have left the UK.
