MI5 has admitted for the first time that it presented three courts with evidence based on lies, while senior officers within the service repeatedly acted dishonestly in handling a case involving a neo-Nazi informant.
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The admission was made on Friday at the High Court in London. Timothy Otty KC, MI5’s lawyer, said the service accepted “without reservation” the official report documenting the failures related to the case.
A panel of three senior judges is assessing whether contempt of court proceedings should be brought against several MI5 officers or against the service itself. Such a measure would be unprecedented.
A report published in July by the former deputy commissioner for investigatory powers, Sir John Goldring, concluded that MI5 had submitted evidence based on “lies” to three courts. The document states that a senior officer, referred to as Officer 2, had repeatedly lied. Another, Officer 3, had misled colleagues and made false statements about information he had received.
The inquiry also found that MI5’s handling of the case had been marked by “serious and systemic failures”.
The case centres on an MI5 informant identified as Agent X, who is described as a neo-Nazi and misogynist.
According to the BBC, Agent X had exerted control over and abused his partner, who was identified by the pseudonym Beth, and had also attacked her with a machete.
Although a police investigation had been conducted against him, MI5 helped him leave the country so that he could continue his intelligence activities.
During the court proceedings, MI5 sought to maintain secrecy and said it had consistently followed a policy of neither confirming nor denying the identities of its agents. The courts accepted this position, leaving Beth without access to evidence linking Agent X to MI5.
It was later discovered that these statements were untrue.
According to the BBC, during several phone calls in 2020 with the journalist investigating the case, MI5 revealed that Agent X was an informant.
Two official investigations were conducted after the BBC’s reports. They found no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing and attributed the inaccurate testimony to mistakes and poor memory.
But in July 2025, High Court judges concluded that the investigations had been undermined by “serious procedural shortcomings” and that their findings could not be considered reliable.
MI5 has announced that Officer 2 is no longer with the service. Meanwhile, Officer 3 has been suspended and is facing disciplinary proceedings that could result in his dismissal.
MI5’s lawyer argued that bringing contempt of court proceedings would not serve the public interest. He referred to Goldring’s detailed investigation, the service’s apologies and the reform programme launched under the leadership of the director general, Sir Ken McCallum.
