‘You’re
in spy territory’: how two UK nationals got tangled in a Chinese espionage row
The Met’s
elite SO15 unit alleged a parliamentary researcher helped his friend create 34
reports for a shadowy front
Dan
Sabbagh
Dan
Sabbagh
Sat 18
Oct 2025 06.00 BST
For
Christopher Cash it was а job he adored. The young parliamentary researcher,
then in his late 20s, was a China specialist working successively for two
influential backbenchers, Tom Tugendhat and Alicia Kearns. He had a
parliamentary pass and was plugged into Westminster’s gossip network during
2022, a year of Conservative turmoil in Westminster, three prime ministers and
future policy uncertainty.
At the
same time, Cash was in close contact with a friend, Christopher Berry, a
teacher based in Hangzhou, eastern China, where the Britons had first met five
years earlier. They discussed politics constantly, using an encrypted app. At
one point, on 18 July, Berry allegedly told him he had met a senior Chinese
Communist party leader (though he now denies meeting anybody of that rank). In
a reply the next day, Cash said: “You’re in spy territory now.”
It was
one of many voice notes and messages sent between the two that were recovered
by the Met police’s elite SO15 unit, best known for its counter-terror work,
but also responsible for investigating espionage threats to the UK.
Berry, it
was alleged, had been tasked by a man known only as Alex, a Chinese spy with
the Ministry of State Security working for a front. Cash was Berry’s
sub-source, passing on information from Westminster to Alex, who in turn shared
it with Cai Qi, a member of China’s ruling politburo.
Cash and
Berry were arrested in March 2023, accused of spying for China, and charged in
April 2024. They denied the charges and have continued to assert their
innocence. Last month, the case was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service,
raising questions about the prosecutors’ decision and prompting a political
row. Yet, little was known about the allegations once faced by the two men
until Downing Street published a witness statement, as part of a wider effort
by Labour to draw a line under the affair.
The
statement, written by Matthew Collins, one of the UK’s deputy national security
advisers, in December 2023 drew on evidence assembled by SO15. It described the
two men in close and at times urgent contact: “On one occasion, for example, a
total of 13 hours passed between Mr Berry receiving tasking, speaking with Mr
Cash, and incorporating the information he provided in a written report back to
‘Alex’.”
On 21
July 2022, Cash was said to have told Berry that Tugendhat, a moderate
China-sceptic, would “almost certainly”, in Collins’s words, become a minister
under Rishi Sunak, who was then vying for the prime ministership against Liz
Truss. This would be in exchange for Tugendhat’s support on foreign policy
matters. The information was “very off the record” and Berry should not tell
his Chinese interlocutor, Cash said. Nevertheless, the detail featured in a
report Berry sent to Alex on 28 July, though in a fact not mentioned by
Collins, a day later, Tugendhat endorsed Truss.
Collins’
witness statement, one of three he gave prosecutors, was published at 9.35pm on
Wednesday. Those named in it were notified in advance, so that night the former
researcher was able put out a response through his lawyer. Cash acknowledged he
“routinely spoke and shared information” with Berry, who was “as critical of
and concerned about the Chinese Communist party as I was”. It was, he added,
“inconceivable to me that he would deliberately pass on any information to
Chinese intelligence”.
Meanwhile,
Berry said, also through his lawyer, that the reports he wrote were “provided
to a Chinese company which I believed had clients wishing to develop trading
links with the UK”. Those reports “contained no classified information”, Berry
said, and “concerned economic and commercial issues widely discussed in the UK
at the time”. They drew on information freely in the public domain, he
continued, “together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be
inaccurate”.
At
another point, Collins claims, Berry was said to have told Alex that Kearns and
Tugendhat held a “secret” meeting with Taiwanese officials from the country’s
defence ministry in May 2025. They had discussed “Taiwanese strategy for a
potential attack from China”, Collins said, and the report was based on
information from Cash, who had sent his friend “multiple messages” describing
the event “including a photo of some attendees”.
The
taskings were frequent. Berry had at least 34 reports to write for Alex between
December 2021 and February 2023, but he messaged his friend regularly. Yet,
despite the activity, there was not a financial relationship, according to
Cash. “I did not ever receive money for information which I provided,” he said
this week, though at one point, in his witness statement, Collins says the
researcher was offered some by Berry, if he could reply at short notice.
Alex,
according to Collins, had asked in December 2022 if Berry could find out more
about the level of communication between the US and UK over Xinjiang, the
north-western province that is home to the country’s heavily repressed Uyghur
minority, and what measures they might take against Beijing in protest. This
tasking was passed “verbatim to Mr Cash with an offer of payment” Collins
wrote, though “Berry did not specify an amount” and there is no suggestion any
money was paid.
Berry’s
final report included some intriguing information. “Berry told ‘Alex’,” Collins
wrote, “that the then foreign secretary [James Cleverly] did not consider
sanctions to be an effective tool in respect of the import of products from
Xinjiang and similar matters.” It was unclear how this conclusion was reached,
but this was at the centre of the government’s case, that “the Chinese state
was given real time insights” into political information, sometimes before it
became public.
In reply,
Cash stated: “I have been placed in an impossible position. I have not had the
daylight of a public trial to show my innocence, and I should not have to take
part in a trial by media”.
Statements
made by Collins, Cash said, “are completely devoid of the context that would
have been given at trial”. He added: “I have lost a career I loved for an
allegation against me of which I am entirely innocent.”
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário