MI5 dodges contempt charges after judges accept its court evidence was a lie

MI5 just walked out of court without a contempt case hanging over it. Three senior judges ruled Tuesday that the spy agency and its officers will not face contempt proceedings — even though MI5 admitted the evidence it gave to three courts was a lie. The judges, led by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr, said a contempt case would be too complex to manage and not in the public interest. Police, they added, have the right powers and resources for that job, and individual MI5 officers could now be investigated for misconduct in public office.

The lie at the center of it all concerned a violent neo-Nazi informant known as Agent X. MI5 told three courts it had stuck to its core secrecy policy — 'neither confirm nor deny' — about whether the man was an agent. That claim let the courts keep information secret from his former partner, known as Beth, whom he coercively controlled and attacked with a machete. But it was untrue: MI5 had already disclosed his agent status in phone calls to a BBC journalist back in 2020, trying to stop an investigation. MI5 also helped the man leave the country for intelligence work while police were investigating him, according to the BBC.

Sir John Goldring's investigation, ordered by the prime minister, landed in July and did not go easy on the service. It found one senior MI5 officer lied repeatedly, another misled colleagues and lied about what he was told, and pointed to 'serious and systemic failures.' In September, MI5 said it accepted those findings without reservation. The two most criticized officers deny any dishonesty — one has resigned, the other faces internal disciplinary proceedings. MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum called the court's decision welcome, saying the judgment 'underlines MI5's serious failures in this case,' and repeated his apology for the distress caused to Beth.

The judges didn't pretend the findings were minor. They said the failures 'will inevitably affect the confidence' courts have in MI5 evidence, and that the service must change how it testifies. But they concluded contempt proceedings would do little more than duplicate Goldring's work, and suggested charges like misconduct in public office or perverting the course of justice might be easier to prove anyway. The Crown Prosecution Service would decide whether to prosecute. The ruling leaves unresolved whether MI5 and its director general can even be hauled into contempt — the judges said nothing would be gained by going after the agency as an entity.

The decision is already drawing side-eye. It lands as barrister Rajiv Menon KC faces an unprecedented contempt process over a speech defending a client tied to the banned group Palestine Action — Menon denies wrongdoing — raising fresh questions about how gently the security establishment gets handled. This fight has deep roots: the government took the BBC to court in 2022 to block its Agent X investigation, failed, but won the agent anonymity. Beth then sued MI5 at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and in 2024 sought a High Court review of a ruling. MI5 told all three courts it had held the line on secrecy. It hadn't.