Whitehall blame game over collapse of 'slam-dunk' case against alleged spies

Questions asked of the CPS, and the case it claimed to have against two men accused of spying for China

- Jon Ungoed-Thomas

It was, according to the intelligence services, a "slam-dunk" case: two suspected spies who penetrated the heart of the British establishment and allegedly passed politically sensitive information to China.

While a blame and counterblame game played out in Whitehall last week over the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash, 30, and Christopher Berry, 33, prosecutors now face fresh questions over what information was passed to China.

Cash, a researcher and a director of parliament's China Research Group, and Berry, who taught in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, were charged with spying in April 2024.

Stephen Parkinson, director of public prosecutions, said in a letter to parliament last week that the spy trial collapsed because crucial testimony could not be obtained from the UK government describing China as a national security threat.

But an expert witness for the case this weekend told The Observer that prosecutors faced another hurdle: proving the information allegedly passed to China was so sensitive that it breached the Official Secrets Act.

Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London and former first secretary at the British embassy in Beijing, who was due to appear as a defence witness, said he considered about "99%” of the material to be publicly available and the type of information that could be gleaned "from a subscription to Private Eye" or other media.