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Refusal to describe government China as an active threat to national security In evidence it was a “complete obstacle” to progress. Case against two alleged spiesThe lead barrister for the prosecution said.
Tom Little Casey told MPs and peers Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) that The question is whether China is a threat to national security or not This was the “million dollar question in the case” and the failure to describe it as one “effectively crashed the case”.
During this time, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson It was suggested that Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Collins, who gave evidence on behalf of the government, knew that the case would be dropped if he did not provide evidence that China was a threat.
“It was made clear that the evidence we sought was important,” Mr Parkinson told MPs and peers. “The language used was: ‘We don’t want to get into a situation in which the case is dismissed half the time.’
“recently, [Mr Collins] This must have been understood because in the meeting on September 9 it was made clear that the matter could not proceed further as he was unable to give the positive response that was sought.
He said the failure to say that China posed an active threat to national security was “fatal” to the case.
The collapse of the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry – who has denied the charges under the Official Secrets Act – has raised questions about Britain’s willingness to confront China as Sir Keir Starmer’s government seeks closer ties with the country.
While Mr Parkinson stressed that the failure of the case was not “a question of blame”, he also told the JCNSS that he thought “really, there should be no difficulty in answering the question we asked: Was China an active threat to national security at this time?”
“We thought this would be evidence that could be provided relatively easily, but it turned out to be a matter of speculation,” he said.
“It took 14 months to get an answer to that question, and the answer was no. And it took a lot of effort on our part to get the answer. But what you can’t do as a prosecutor is just tell people what to say. You can only ask pointed questions.
“It was not so much the evidence that was given, but that the answers went to the heart of the issues, and that was fatal to the case.”
Speaking about the meeting with the Deputy National Security Adviser (DNSA), Mr Little said that “it’s clear to me that he would not say that China poses an active threat to national security at this time”.
“This was in response to what I regard as the million dollar question in the case, and once he said that the current prosecution for those charges was effectively untenable, that is my carefully reflected position.”
Giving evidence later in the evening, Mr Collins said he stopped short of describing China as a threat “in general terms” because it reflected government policy at the time of the two men’s alleged spying on behalf of Beijing.
DNSA said: “In all my statements, what I was trying to do was to demonstrate the ways in which China poses a threat to our national security.
“In the first witness statement, I set out the extent of the espionage threat; in the second and third statements, I set out cyber threats, economic security threats, and threats to our democratic institutions. What I did not do was define or label China as a threat in general terms.”
He said: “When I started this process, I was always clear that I would have to be in line with the government policy at the time.
“I have cited a wide range of government policy documents from that time, and the government at that time did not go so far as to describe China as a threat in the general sense.”
Mr Collins also said he was “surprised” to learn the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was dropping the case against two alleged Chinese spies, telling MPs and peers he was only aware it could end on September 3.
At the session Mr Collins also told MPs and peers that he had been asked by counter-terrorism police to include a line on the current government’s position in his witness statements, “out of fear that it would create a rift between my witness statements and new government policy”.
It came after Mr Collins included a sentence mimicking the language of Labour’s manifesto in his witness statements, leading to allegations of political interference in the case.
Asked why the exact wording of Labour’s policy on China was included in his subsequent evidence, Mr Collins said: “I was asked by the Counter Terrorism Police (CTP) to include a reference to the new government policy, out of fear that a rift would be created between my witness statements and the new government policy. I did so.
“In fact, I have drawn this conclusion from an answer to a parliamentary question rather than from the Labor Party manifesto.”
Asked whether he had been politically pressured to include reference to Labour’s position, he replied: “No. The CTP asked me to provide evidence in support of the case during all my witness statements to ensure a successful prosecution.”