A BBC investigation has revealed that MI5 lied in three courts in order to protect a violent neo-Nazi from facing charges for attacking his girlfriend with a machete. The victim, who is known to the public as Beth, accused the MI5 agent, known as Agent X, of physical violence toward her, threats of sexual and physical violence against women and children, psychological abuse and threatening terrorist attacks against Jewish people. She claims that he used his status as an agent of MI5 to scare her from reporting the abuse, claiming it put him above the law, which has so far been proven true. Maya Bula reports.
‘Neither confirm nor deny’
After the initial attack with the machete occurred, Agent X was arrested for assault, but his charges were shortly dropped by the CPS, citing a lack of evidence – a move that was easy to make as officers refused to get a statement from Beth or accept the footage of the attack that she filmed on her phone, footage which has now been published in censored form by the BBC. Later the attorney general, Suella Braverman, applied for an injunction to stop the BBC from airing this story using the ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ (NCND) defence, to shut down the story that an MI5 agent perpetrated this, with ‘witness A’ claiming in court that no one from MI5 ever confirmed whether Agent X did or didn’t work for MI5. While they failed in stopping the story from airing, the BBC was not allowed to release the name of Agent X out of supposed concerns for his safety from extremist groups, though no concern was shown for the women he could harm in the future.
Beth would go on to bring a claim against MI5 in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a specialist court, regarding their negligence in hiring and enabling a man who they should have known was a threat to women and children as he had similar stories of abuse with separate women in the past. MI5 claimed however that it should not have to respond to Beth’s claim, as going against its policy of NCND would threaten national security. The spy agency refused to even privately confirm to Beth whether Agent X was in fact one of its agents. Deciding they could not force MI5 to break its silence, the courts barred Beth from crucial hearings, denied access to evidence provided by MI5 that was used against her and refused to admit most of the findings of the Tribunal, leaving MI5’s claims largely unchallenged. Beth tried to have this reviewed by the high court, believing this conduct was unjust, but MI5 opposed this review.
But the NCND defence was based on a lie: before even the initial injunction, an MI5 official confirmed to a BBC journalist in private that Agent X was in fact an MI5 agent, all of which was recorded, and therefore their earlier claim by Witness A was false. MI5 director general Ken McCallum released a statement: ‘It has become clear that MI5 provided incorrect information to the high court in relation to an aspect of our witness statement. As soon as we became aware of the issue, we immediately took steps to correct that part of the statement. We take our duty to provide truthful, accurate and complete information very seriously, and have offered an unreserved apology to the court.’ The lie was told not once but three times to three separate courts and was used to justify shielding Agent X’s name from the public, to justify excluding Beth from vital hearings, evidence and findings, and in an attempt to stop the story from airing. Had there not been a recording of the confession MI5 would never have conceded.
British state – sexist state
What is on clear display is the British state’s total disregard for women’s safety: MI5 did not care for the safety of Beth and did everything in its power to ensure that no harm would come to the man who abused her; it did not care for the women he abused before her, nor the women he could potentially harm in the future. Agent X’s identity and location are unknown. This is an individual who Beth says spoke of violent fantasies involving children, who spoke of a desire to kill Jewish people en masse, and who attacked Beth with a machete and then boasted about it to her days later. This is who MI5 is protecting.
The NCND defence has also been used to protect abusive undercover cops sent to spy on left-wing activists and groups. As revealed in the ‘spycops’ Undercover Policing Inquiry, these spies proceeded to have sexual relations and even children with women who were none the wiser to their true identities, while some of these police had their own spouses and kids back home. Many of the activists the spycops had relationships with described feeling as though they had been raped by the state, that their sense of self and security had been lost. In March, 92 individuals and 20 activist groups signed an open letter to the judge-led inquiry, claiming it has mistreated victims by forcing them to submit evidence for the next stage of the Inquiry before an impossible six-week deadline; over 100 victims are threatening to withhold evidence.
Whether it is the police or MI5, despite what they claim, they are not here to protect and serve us. They will protect violent men and police officers who abuse their status not because they are a corrupt institution but because they are working as intended. Women just so happen to be the collateral damage in this case. We must work to dismantle the capitalist system that thrives off these abuses and oppressive institutions – only then can we have liberation.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 305 April/May 2025
