Keir Starmer releases documents submitted by deputy national security adviser to Crown Prosecution Service
Downing Street has published three witness statements from UK’s deputy national security adviser in an effort to draw as line under the row over why spying charges against two Britons accused of spying for China were dropped last month.
Charges against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry fell away because prosecutors could not obtain evidence from Matthew Collins that Beijing represented a “threat to the national security of the UK” over “many months”.
The third and final statement supplied by Collins in August describes China’s intelligence services as “highly capable” and that they “conduct large scale espionage operations agains the UK to advance the Chinese state’s interests and harm the interests and security of the UK”.
It was his final effort at ending a stand off with the Stephen Parkinson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, but though similar to the language sought by prosecutors was nevertheless not thought sufficient by them to allow the case to proceed.
