Parliament's security committee has criticised prosecutors for dropping charges against two men accused of spying for China, concluding the handling of the case was 'shambolic'. The cross-party Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) said 'systemic failures' led to the collapse of the trial of former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash and teacher Christopher Berry.
The report, published on Tuesday, found a process 'beset by confusion and misaligned expectations' and 'inadequate' communication between the government and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS unexpectedly dropped the charges under the Official Secrets Act on 15 September, citing insufficient evidence that China posed a 'threat to the national security of the UK'.
The committee said the episode created 'a crisis of public confidence' and fuelled conspiracy theories, but found 'no evidence of a coordinated high-level effort to collapse the prosecution'. It questioned why the CPS changed its approach after a July 2024 ruling on a Bulgarian spy ring, and was 'surprised' that the government's evidence was deemed insufficient for a jury.
The report piles pressure on the CPS, which maintains it lacked the necessary evidence. Senior lawyers, including former director of public prosecutions Ken McDonald, have challenged this claim. The committee also criticised the government's 'insufficiently robust' senior oversight.
A government source dismissed Tory allegations of political interference, saying: 'The Tories spent weeks throwing around baseless accusations which have been proven totally untrue. The reality is that their negligence of national security left unacceptable gaps in the law.'
