Oct. 16 (UPI) -- The head of Britain's parliamentary panel overseeing national security said Thursday that an inquiry would be launched "as soon as possible" into the collapse of a criminal trial of a researcher and a teacher accused of spying for China.
The inquiry came amid criticism of both the ruling Labour government and the Crown Prosecution Service after Prime Minister Keir Starmer released witness statements the director of public prosecutions had blamed for dropping the case due lack of evidence.
Accusations that the government had deliberately sabotaged it to avoid upsetting China and damaging economic ties were leveled by the opposition after Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson alleged it had failed to provide the necessary proof that China was a national security threat for the prosecution to proceed.
The government blamed the previous Conservative administration that was in office at the time in 2023 when the CPS opened its investigation.
However, the releases showed Deputy National Security Adviser Mathew Collins stating that China was engaged in "large-scale espionage" against Britain and that it posed the "biggest state-based threat to the country's economic security."
