(UK) Home secretary ‘very disappointed’ over collapse of China spy trial
The home secretary has refused to describe China as an “enemy of the UK” as she insisted there was no ministerial interference in the collapse of a Chinese espionage case.
Shabana Mahmood said she was “very disappointed” that the trial of Christopher Berry, 33, and Chris Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, did not go ahead, as she was grilled over whether there was any influence from government advisers over the decision. Both men had denied the allegations.
The Sunday Times reported that Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell met with other senior Whitehall mandarins, including the foreign office's top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins, to discuss the case early last month, days before the charges against the pair were dropped on 15 September.
In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy” – but Mr Powell reportedly revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China.
The Sunday Times reported this meant Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser due to give evidence for the prosecution, would be unable to say Beijing was an enemy.
Ms Mahmood said that she was not aware of any Whitehall meeting taking place to discuss the case, and insisted that there was no ministerial involvement, although the Sunday Times report focused on the actions of officials, rather than ministers.
Ms Mahmood told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I don't recognise that reporting about a meeting, I'm not aware of any such meeting taking place.
“It was a decision of the Crown Prosecution Service, as they have made clear themselves, an independent decision on whether to proceed with that prosecution.
“I'm very disappointed that that prosecution has not proceeded. Our understanding is that the evidence that was available to the Crown Prosecution Service when they brought the charges is not materially different to the evidence that they had just before the trial was due to get under way.
“So, I think it's a question for the prosecution service to answer, but as the government, the home office, we very much wanted to see that trial proceed."
Asked if China was an enemy of the UK, she said: "China is a 'challenge', is, I think, the word that I would use."
She said Sir Keir’s government had a "hard-headed, realistic approach" to the Chinese state.
Stephen Parkinson, chief prosecutor in England and Wales, had said the CPS had determined the proceedings in the China spy case had to be stopped because of an "evidential failure".
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns, who had previously employed Mr Cash, said: "There are serious questions about constitutional impropriety.
"Starmer must find some backbone and root out the truth. Either his ministers or his most senior advisers acted to spike the CPS' ability to prosecute with his full knowledge, or in contempt of PM - which is it?"
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith pointed to areas such as UK universities' reliance on the income from Chinese students to say "we are now uniquely tied to China and its brutal regime".
"We are seen as the soft underbelly of the Western alliance," he said.
"Small wonder Downing Street does China's bidding in shutting down the spy prosecution."
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference: “I think China is an enemy of this country.
“I think it’s a real, serious threat to our values, our economic and our national security, and all decisions must flow from that.
“If someone is spying on our Parliament on behalf of China, lock them up, send them to jail for a long time.”
