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A key witness in the failed prosecution of two men accused of spying for China said he was “surprised” the case had collapsed, given he had said Beijing posed a range of threats.
Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser, also told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that he had been “disappointed” at the decision by the Crown Prosecution Service in September to drop the legal proceedings.
Yet the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, appearing before the same committee of MPs and peers, said an inability by Mr Collins specifically to describe the Chinese state as a national security threat was a “fatal” blow to their case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry.
Mr Parkinson similarly said he had been “disappointed and frustrated” at the collapse of the high-profile trial.
But he claimed his team of prosecutors had tried every avenue and concluded that a successful prosecution would not be possible.
Despite the strong defence of the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision, members of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy appeared visibly bemused about why the trial was derailed, given the evidence available of the threat posed by China.
A ‘range’ of security threats
Mr Collins said he submitted three witness statements that set out how the communist state posed a “range” of security threats, including espionage as well as threats to the UK’s democratic institutions, its economy and in cyberspace.
“Throughout the period… I was trying to ensure that we could support a successful prosecution. I was somewhat surprised that the intention was to drop the case,” he said.
Appearing separately, though, Mr Parkinson explained that his team “weren’t quite there” when it came to establishing that Beijing posed a threat to the UK’s national security between 2021 and 2023 when the…
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