BBCThe security service has accepted it gave evidence based on lies to three courts and that senior MI5 officers were repeatedly dishonest.
It is the first time MI5 has accepted that lies were told to the courts while defending a violent neo-Nazi spy whose abuse was uncovered by the BBC.
The lies were revealed by the BBC in February 2025, which the security service then vehemently denied.
Timothy Otty KC, representing MI5, announced the position during a High Court hearing in London on Friday.
The security service claimed it had maintained NCND and, consequently, the courts allowed it to keep information secret from a woman who was abused by him.
But what MI5 said was untrue. The security service had in fact disclosed the man’s agent status in phone calls to me, as it tried to persuade me not to investigate him in 2020.
A panel of three senior judges – England and Wales’ most senior judge, Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr, President of the King’s Bench Division Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Chamberlain – is considering what action to take over the false evidence.
In particular, it will decide whether to initiate contempt of court proceedings against certain MI5 officers or MI5 itself. Any such move would be unprecedented.
The report, by then-deputy investigatory powers commissioner Sir John Goldring, found that one senior MI5 spy – known as Officer 2 – lied repeatedly, while another – Officer 3 – misled his own colleagues and lied about what he was told.
He also found there were “serious and systemic failures in MI5’s conduct” throughout the case.
Otty said MI5 “fully accepts and acknowledges the gravity of the issues raised” in the report, published in July, and they must never happen again.
He added that MI5 had committed to a major programme of reform under the leadership of director general Sir Ken McCallum.
Otty argued against contempt proceedings being brought, saying it would not be in the public interest given Sir John’s detailed investigation, MI5’s apologies, and its commitment to a programme of reform.
He said Officer 2 had resigned from the service and that Officer 3 had been suspended and was facing disciplinary proceedings, which could lead to his dismissal.
Lawyers for both officers also argued against launching contempt proceedings.
Matthew Butt KC, for Officer 2, said said the officer accepted that his conduct had fallen “below the standard expected of him”, for which he apologised and expressed regret.
But he said he denied acting dishonestly or having interfered with the administration of justice, and did not accept the report’s findings.
Aaron Watkins apologised on behalf of Officer 3 and accepted his conduct “undoubtably” contributed to the courts and parties involved being misled, but denied it had been the result of dishonesty.
He said the evidence presented by Sir John fell short of the threshold for contempt of court, and said such proceedings would not be in the public interest because there had already been a thorough investigation.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the BBC said the corporation considered the threshold had been met and said there was a “very clear public interest” in doing so.
Jude Bunting KC said providing false evidence was “a particularly serious affront to the administration of justice” and noted that while MI5 now offered a sincere apology to the court, its response when the lies were first exposed was “not consistent with transparency or responsibility”.
The case centres around the foreign neo-Nazi misogynist – an MI5 informant known as Agent X who used his security service role as a tool of abuse.
He coercively controlled his partner, known by the alias Beth, and attacked her with a machete. MI5 then helped him go abroad to continue intelligence work while under police investigation.
The government took the BBC to court in 2022 in a failed attempt to block its investigation into X, but won him legal anonymity. Beth then sued MI5 at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and in 2024 she sought a review of a ruling at the High Court.
Arguing for secrecy in all three courts, the security service told judges that it had always stuck to its core secrecy policy and never told anyone whether X was an agent, including me. The courts were told this in a sworn statement from a senior officer, a deputy director called Witness A.
The courts accepted MI5’s arguments. This meant Beth and everyone else was banned from ever officially being told X was an agent and denied access to the key evidence. She was left at a serious disadvantage and may have lost the case.
Officer 2 had tried to cover up for the man, falsely saying he was not an abusive misogynist nor a real extremist.
Following the court decision in late 2024, I challenged MI5 and said they had lied to the courts. MI5 aggressively maintained its position that its NCND policy had been maintained until I produced evidence proving it was untrue, including a recording of one of the calls with Officer 2.
Because of the BBC’s revelations, two official inquiries took place which absolved MI5 and its officers of deliberate wrongdoing, claiming the false evidence was down to mistakes and poor memories.
But, in July 2025, a panel of senior High Court judges ruled that the investigations carried out by MI5 suffered from “serious procedural deficiencies” and that “we cannot rely on their conclusions”.
Sir John’s investigation was ordered by the prime minister in September 2025 after MI5’s explanations about what happened were rejected as deficient and unreliable.
