Acquitted China spy Chris Cash says he was a fall guy for UK security services

Chris Cash, a former parliamentary researcher acquitted of spying for China, says he was a 'convenient fall guy' for UK police and security services who wanted to put foreign espionage threats 'on the map'. In his first interview since the verdict, he shared more than 6,000 messages with the BBC — 6,273 in total, covering his exchanges with his friend Chris Berry. Cash's solicitor told the BBC the messages are genuine. The acquittal sparked a political row over the government's failure to label China a 'threat'.

The pair met in 2018 while both taught English at a school in China. Cash returned to the UK in 2019 and went on to become director of the China Research Group, a small policy outfit run by China-sceptic Conservative MPs. Berry stayed put, writing political and economic reports for clients — court documents say he compiled 34 reports for a man linked to the Chinese state spy agency. Berry has denied wrongdoing and said at the time of the acquittal he had been 'unfairly subjected to a trial by media', insisting his reports held no classified material and relied on public sources. He declined to comment to the BBC.

The messages lay out a summer 2022 encounter Berry described to Cash in voice notes. Driven to a government-owned villa inside a grand compound, Berry called it 'like a psychological game of chess' and 'like a test', keeping his hands under the table as tea arrived: 'I didn't want it to be obvious if I was nervous.' A senior Chinese official, speaking through an interpreter, asked 'about the situation in the UK at the moment, about the Tory leadership thing' — just after Boris Johnson quit and while Liz Truss was on her way to winning the contest.

Cash fired back the next day: 'You, my friend, have just been elite captured,' adding 'You're in spy territory now.' He calls it a 'tongue-in-cheek joke', saying he knew Berry as 'a staunch critic of the Chinese Communist Party'. Asked why the meeting raised no alarm, Cash told the BBC: 'Because I didn't think anything of the meeting, really.' He admits he was 'unprofessional and naive', but the trove contains no evidence he was paid by or sympathetic to the CCP, and Berry has disputed that his host was anyone as senior as Cai Qi. Six months on, Berry said 'off the record' he had it 'on pretty good authority' that Beijing was weighing dropping sanctions on Tom Tugendhat, provided the West 'continued to show signals that they are willing to work together'.

Cash was woken at quarter to six on a March morning by car doors shutting at his parents' home in Edinburgh. Four counter-terrorism officers burst into his bedroom, told him he was under arrest for breaching the Official Secrets Act, handcuffed him and drove him to London — 'My mum was hysterical,' he says. Berry was arrested the same day. Cash believes the case was pursued as a warning to others, and says he would 'never do anything' to harm UK national security — though he wishes he had cut off contact. Berry had earlier been stopped and questioned at Heathrow, with his laptop and phone seized.