MI5 will reimburse a woman who was abused by a neo-Nazi agent.

 

MI5 will reimburse a woman who was abused by a neo-Nazi agent.(Image: Getty Images)

MI5 will pay compensation and has apologised to a woman who was coercively controlled and attacked with a machete by one of its agents.

 A BBC investigation that took place four years ago revealed that the man, who was known to the public as Agent X, was a neo-Nazi misogynist who made abusive use of his position in the security service. This led to her legal claim. Before he moved abroad to continue his intelligence work while the police were investigating, the BBC discovered that he used his status to abuse his partner, who went by the alias Beth. After subsequently failing in court to discredit Beth, MI5 recently offered to pay compensation to settle her claim.  The offer has now been accepted by her. Kate Ellis, from the Centre for Women's Justice, who is Beth's solicitor, said: "To have this kind of outcome and to win actually against a body like MI5 who are so shrouded in secrecy and in a sense so powerful, is a huge achievement for Beth."

 "We sincerely apologise to Beth for the distress she has suffered because of MI5 mistakes in this litigation," the Director General of MI5 Sir Ken McCallum said in a statement. "We relied on incorrect evidence and our record keeping fell well short of the standard of professionalism that we expect, and to which Beth was entitled.  We sincerely regret that our errors prolonged the litigation and added to Beth's suffering. "Beth's claim has been settled by MI5, and we have directly apologized to Beth." "Prompted in part by Beth's case, MI5 has embarked on a programme of work to reinforce the highest standards of record keeping and information management."

 Beth's legal claim at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has been settled by MI5 without an admission of liability, or legal admission of wrongdoing. When Sir Ken personally contacted his BBC counterpart Tim Davie in 2021 in an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the reporting, he erroneously claimed that the planned story was "inaccurate." The MI5 spy, a foreign national, was a right-wing extremist with a violent past, according to evidence. He also engaged in fantasies about eating children.

 Before joining MI5, he had abused a previous partner abroad, including threatening to kill her and her child. Beth, a British national, met the agent on a dating site.  The couple went on to live together in the UK.

Read More: MI5 agent used secret status to terrorise girlfriend

 She previously told the BBC that he was initially "charming," but that over time he became a misogynist and extremist who was obsessed with cruelty and violence. Beth claimed that he abused and coerced her in addition to sexually assaulting her. In one video, Agent X was seen attacking her with a machete and threatening to kill her. Beth said that while she was "grateful" for the compensation, "it can never do anything to repair what I went through at the hands of X." in a statement. "I'd pay that money to avoid even a moment of what I had to experience of the worst of his abuse," she said. She went on to say, "very strongly that, despite this apology, the MI5 are still protecting this violent misogynistic predator," and she added, "even though this apology." MI5 is currently under investigation after the BBC revealed that the security service gave false evidence to three courts while defending its handling of the agent.

 Within a few weeks, the investigatory powers commissioners will deliver their findings to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. In an effort to maintain secrecy, the security service informed the judges that it had adhered to its policy of not confirming or denying the identities of informants. In fact, MI5 had attempted to persuade me not to investigate Agent X by disclosing his status to me via phone calls. Until I presented evidence, including a recording of one of the calls, proving it was false, the service aggressively maintained its position. Following the BBC's revelations last February, Sir Ken apologised for the false evidence.

 Two official inquiries then took place which absolved MI5 and its officers of deliberate wrongdoing, claiming the false evidence was down to mistakes and poor memories.

 However, in July, a panel of senior high court judges decided that "we cannot rely on their conclusions" and that "investigations carried out by MI5 to date suffer from serious procedural deficiencies." They stated that it would be "premature" to initiate contempt of court proceedings against any MI5 officers prior to conducting a new investigation. Sir Ken had previously stated that the service would fully cooperate with the new investigation.

Source: BBC