'They lost their bottle': why China spy case never reached courts

Senior legal sources claim that DPP dropped charges against Berry and Cash over fears trial would damage reputation of the Crown Prosecution Service

- Jon Ungoed-Thomas & Catherine Neilan

The director of public prosecutions “lost his bottle” over the China spy case, despite originally bringing the charges, because he feared it would cause reputational damage to the Crown Prosecution Service, senior legal sources have claimed.

Stephen Parkinson, the most senior prosecutor in England and Wales, halted the case against Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash last month. Legal experts have said they are mystified at the reasons given for the decision.

Berry, a teacher, and Cash, a parliamentary researcher, were charged in April last year for breaching the Official Secrets Act by allegedly passing sensitive information to China from 2021 to 2023. Both Berry and Cash have denied wrongdoing.

In order to bring charges in 2024, Parkinson would have been satisfied there was a realistic prospect of conviction. He would have needed sufficient evidence at that point to prove China was an “enemy” under the meaning of the Official Secrets Act; that the information passed to China was “prejudicial” to UK security interests; and the information was “calculated” to be useful to an enemy.

But just weeks before the case was due to start it was abandoned, with the CPS saying it did not meet the threshold to go to trial.

Parkinson has since told MPs the case collapsed because the government would not provide an unequivocal statement that “China represented a threat to national security”. He claimed it had just fallen short of what was required.