QB-2022-000174 - [2025] EWHC 1669 (KB)

In May 2022, Beth issued a human rights claim in the IPT in respect of her ill-treatment by X. On 21 June 2024, after an interlocutory hearing, the IPT (Lieven J and Judge Rupert Jones) held that MI5 should be permitted to adopt a NCND stance on the question whether X was a CHIS. The issue was an important one because Beth’s evidence was that X had used his CHIS status to facilitate his abuse of her. The IPT held at [37]:

“We are satisfied that there is cogent evidence before us to support the Respondent’s assessment as to the harm to national security of waiving NCND, in addition to that of identifying X. We also do not accept that the Respondent has come close to waiving NCND in its approach or conduct in reply to Beth’s allegations. Rather, the respondent has gone to extensive lengths throughout these and the BBC proceedings to uphold the NCND policy.”

On 18 November 2024, Mr de Simone wrote to MI5 saying that the BBC planned to report that, contrary to what MI5 had said, MI5 had positively volunteered to him that X was a CHIS and that the MI5 representative to whom Mr De Simone spoke said that he was authorised to say so. The letter said that the BBC’s legal department was separately writing to inform the Attorney General of an intended application to vary the injunction to allow this point to be reported.

This prompted a robust response from the Government Legal Department on 25 November 2024, noting that the intended purpose of the proposed story was to assert that MI5 had given “a materially inaccurate account of the extent to which it has previously confirmed or denied X’s CHIS status”. The letter said that MI5 “stands by the entirety of the account given to the High Court in Witness A’s witness statement”. It invited Mr De Simone to provide evidence.

On 2 December 2024, the BBC invited members of MI5’s legal team to attend Broadcasting House to inspect and listen to the contemporaneous evidence, including an audio recording of some of the relevant conversations. They did so on 13 December 2024. In the light of that meeting, the Government Legal Department wrote to Chamberlain J on 18 December 2024 to say that they had recently been provided with information which led them to consider that “a particular aspect of the evidence relied upon in the course of the injunction proceedings that were before the court on a number of occasions during the period February-May 2022 may be materially incorrect”.

On 24 December 2024, the BBC applied to vary the injunction to enable them to report that false evidence had been given. The application was supported by a third witness statement from Mr De Simone. In it, he gave details of telephone conversations on 8 and 9 June 2020 and referred to later conversations without giving details of these. An audio recording of the conversation on 9 June 2020 was exhibited.