British authorities have dropped criminal prosecutions of alleged Chinese spies in order to maintain good trade and diplomatic relations with China, the Financial Times reported, citing its sources.
On September 15, it was announced that the Crown Prosecution Service had dropped charges against two Britons for violating the Official Secrets Act in favor of China. The case was opened in April 2024. Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash are accused of having between December 28, 2021 and February 3, 2023 “with intent to prejudice the security or interests of the state“, “received, collected, recorded, published or communicated to another person articles, notes, documents or information which they believed could or might be“directly or indirectly “useful to the enemy“, in breach of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The statement specified that the other party in question was China.
According to the newspaper, the case fell apart after Matthew Collins, the British Prime Minister's deputy national security adviser, refused to call China an “enemy“ in court. The newspaper said the charges were dropped because of the British government's foreign policy efforts to maintain good relations with Beijing.
At the time of his arrest, Cash was working as a parliamentary assistant. Typically, the duties of such a position include collecting information that MPs use to form their opinions on various issues. According to The Sunday Times, the detainee had connections with several MPs from the then-ruling Conservative Party, including those with classified information clearances. Among them are former deputy home secretary Tom Tugendhat and former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Alicia Cairns.