MI5’s court evidence is based on lies, says an official report

In the year

Two public inquiries have since been held and MI5 have exonerated the officers of any wrongdoing, saying the false evidence was down to errors and poor recollections. One of the questions was that others in MI5 lied that they did not know the NCND had been abandoned by Officer 2.

However, in July 2025, a panel of High Court judges ruled that the investigations conducted by MI5 suffered from “serious procedural flaws” and that “we cannot rely on their conclusions”.

The new 10-month investigation by Sir John Goldring has now made a series of grim findings. Sir John is deputy head of the Investigative Commissioner’s Office (IPCO), the watchdog and inspector general of MI5.

MI5 gave false evidence based on lies to three tribunals. It also misled the IPCO when it investigated MI5’s handling of Agent X and concluded that the service had left the BBC with NND – something MI5 then falsely claimed did not happen.

A senior intelligence officer who worked as MI5’s director of communications, 2 was “untruthful” throughout and will always be with me, reminding him of his “total departure from NCND”.

The report says he was initially vague about leaving NCND with Officer 3, before later firmly telling his colleagues and lawyers that he had not.

“He was not telling the truth. He lied about his first conversation with Officer 3. His lies formed the basis of MI5’s false account,” the report said.

Sir John Officer 3, an experienced agent supervisor who took over the liaison role from Officer 2, “misrepresented what Officer 2 said” on several occasions during the preparation of MI5’s evidence – a process he largely supervised. Sir John said he had not acted in good faith.

The report says: “Officer 2 continues to say nothing about NCND’s initial certainty. As a major and senior player in these events, he is content to continue as he has been. Officer 3 bears a great deal of responsibility for continuing MI5’s lies”.

Sir John also concluded that Officer 3 had “effectively shut down” the MI5 officer who ran the agency’s surveillance team that managed Agent X.

That team knew the NCND was up, as evidenced by internal documents, but felt “back in the box” by Officer 3 after the team leader alerted senior MI5 officers to what had really happened.

Officer 3 said he could “categorically” say it didn’t happen, which is completely false. The report found that the warnings received were not “true”.

Additionally, in an internal email, Officer 3 shows MI5 admitting that misleading the court in the way he was accused of at the time was a criminal offense of perjury.

Witness A, who gave a series of depositions to the courts on behalf of Mi5, found Sir John had “overrepresented his position” about what he knew about the NCND case during an internal legal meeting.

He said the report was “false” and “so far, Witness A has played a role in the declaration of a false record”.

As for the thorough reviews that cleared MI5 and its officers of any wrongdoing, Sir John said they lacked an “independent review” and were fundamentally wrong.

High Court judges, including Lady Chief Justice, will now have to decide whether to launch court proceedings against any MI5 offices or MI5. There is also the possibility of a criminal investigation based on a finding that lies have been told.