China spy case evidence was not strong enough for trial, says chief prosecutor

The Government’s evidence in the China spying case was not strong enough to take it to trial, the chief prosecutor for England and Wales has said.

Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), declined to directly blame anyone for the collapse of the trial in September, though he said evidence given by deputy national security adviser (DNSA) Matt Collins was central to its end.

The collapse of the case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry – who both denied charges under the Official Secrets Act – has triggered a Westminster blame game.

Speaking at the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS), Mr Parkinson insisted the failure of the case was not “a question of blame”.

He added: “The responsibility of prosecutors is to place cases before the court on the basis of sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

“And ultimately, the issue in this case is that we were not able to provide the evidence to sustain the case in respect of one essential element, which was the element that China was an enemy, as was required by the statute.”

Asked whether he ever had “the feeling that the Government wanted this case to fail”, Mr Parkinson said: “Nothing reached me.”

The DPP told peers and MPs no “reasonable jury” could have been properly directed to conclude China was a threat to the UK’s national security.

MPs have questioned why prosecutors did not continue with the case and allow a jury made up of members of the public to make a decision based on the charges.

But in his second statement provided to the CPS, Mr Collins’ evidence did not provide evidence China was an “active threat” to national security “in terms” asked for, Mr Parkinson said.

Lawyers for the defence could have made a submission there was “no case to answer” if “any element of the offence is not satisfied”, Mr Parkinson told the committee.

A judge could have stopped the case in those circumstances, he said, adding: “This case would not have got to a jury, because our professional assessment was that we were unable to satisfy that then.”

The prosecution’s lead barrister in the case, Tom Little KC, said Mr Collins told him “he would not say that China posed an active threat to national security at the material time”, which “brought this case effectively to a crashing halt as far as that was concerned with that witness”.

Dame Emily Thornberry, a senior Labour MP and former barrister, challenged the chief prosecutor as he argued that the Roussev case, involving a group of Bulgarian nationals spying on behalf of Russia, had changed case law around how an enemy country was defined.

She told the committee: “What changed it, you say, was Roussev. But don’t you agree that the Court of Appeal said that it wasn’t going to – this is in the case of Roussev – that they weren’t going to establish a new meaning of enemy, that the term ‘enemy’ should be approached in a ‘common sense way’.

“Now we lawyers know ‘common sense way’ means that’s why we have juries, because juries have so much more common sense than the lawyers. Frankly, we need to get the jury to have a look and decide whether or not someone is an enemy.”

Other witnesses appearing at the JCNSS on Monday include the country’s top civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald, and Mr Collins.

On Wednesday, the committee will hear from Attorney General Lord Hermer and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Darren Jones.