Pressure was building last night on the Director of Public Prosecutions to explain why the China spy case was dropped even though there was reportedly bombshell evidence against the accused.
Stephen Parkinson faced letters from the chairmen of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy as well as the home affairs, foreign affairs and justice committees, all demanding a ‘fuller explanation’ as to why the controversial case was aborted on the eve of trial last month.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has also written to the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) requesting urgent disclosure of correspondence in the case, while accusing the Government of being ‘consistently dishonest’ about its collapse.
In meetings with senior MPs, Mr Parkinson is said have claimed the evidence he had from the Government’s main witness, deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins, fell ‘5 per cent short’.
The Government insists it is up to Mr Parkinson to explain what could possibly have satisfied him to meet that extra threshold to bring a successful prosecution against parliamentary researcher Chris Cash, 30, and his friend Chris Berry, 33, for allegedly passing secrets to China.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry deny all the charges against them.
Britain’s top prosecutor faces a series of questions, including whether evidence was sought from sources other than Mr Collins, who was unable to describe Beijing as an enemy of the UK, fatally undermining the case.
Stephen Parkinson faced letters from the chairmen of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy as well as the home affairs, foreign affairs and justice committees
Yesterday, the Government published three witness statements from Mr Collins revealing a raft of alleged evidence against Mr Cash and Mr Berry, including the claim that secret reports were sent to Beijing within 13 hours of information allegedly being passed on from Parliament by Mr Cash.
Mr Collins repeatedly laid out the threat China posed to Britain.
Now Mr Parkinson has been asked why this evidence was not enough to proceed with the case and what steps he took to make ministers aware that the prosecution would fold after it emerged that the Prime Minister knew days beforehand.
The top prosecutor has also been asked whether he considered intelligence material from MI5, which has frequently referred to Beijing as a national security threat.
Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve told the BBC it was ‘utterly mystifying’ as to why the case was dropped in light of the statements. Other questions surround the role of former and current government legal officers in decisions relating to the case.
In their letter, the committee chairs wrote: ‘In view of the seriousness of the allegations, the implications for UK national security and foreign policy, and the need to support the integrity and independence of the criminal justice system, we believe that it is in the public interest for a fuller explanation for the dropping of charges to be provided.’
Separately, Mr Philp has urged the CPS to publish its correspondence with Mr Collins to shed light on whether the Government fatally undermined the case in order to retain economic ties with China. He wrote: ‘In the interests of transparency, it is essential that we see what further evidence the CPS was asking for from the Government, and why. I would be grateful if you could therefore urgently publish the correspondence between the CPS and the Government on this matter.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has written to the head of the CPS requesting urgent disclosure of correspondence in the case
‘I appreciate that this is unusual, but the correspondence is vital context for understanding the witness statements that have now been published. This is also a matter of critical national interest. The Government and its various changing claims cannot be properly scrutinised without this material being placed urgently in the public domain.’
Meanwhile, Lord Beamish, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament announced yesterday that it would investigate how classified material on China had been used in the case.
The Labour peer and former minister said his committee had the ‘legal power to require information from the UK intelligence community’ and ‘will follow the evidence wherever necessary’.
