The Australian : Slain spy Gareth Williams linked to bondage, male escort

Slain spy Gareth Williams linked to bondage, male escort

Staff writers | From: The Times | August 27, 2010

POLICE investigating the murder of a British spy found bondage equipment in his flat and evidence linking him to a male escort.

The find has raised questions over how Gareth Williams's private life slipped through the vetting procedures of the security services. Senior security personnel are said to be "extremely concerned" that an employee with high clearance had a lifestyle that put him in danger of being compromised.

A source close to the investigation said that evidence discovered in the London flat included bondage items, porn films and paraphernalia associated with sado-masochism. It is also understood that Mr Williams, who was on secondment to M16 from GCHQ, the Government's top secret listening post, has been linked to a male escort.

Detectives have focused their investigations on the private life of Mr Williams, 30, since he was found on Monday murdered and stuffed into a holdall in his flat in Pimlico, a short walk from M16 headquarters.

It also emerged that Mr Williams travelled regularly to the United States on official business, raising further concerns about potential national security breaches because of the information he had access to. He went to Washington several times a year, stayed for a few weeks each time and went shortly before he died.

Last night the National Security Agency refused to confirm or deny that Mr Williams, who is believed to be an expert in codes and ciphers, had worked for them. It is not unusual for members of the security services to spend time working for government security departments in America.

Jenny Elliott, the spy's former landlady in Cheltenham, said Mr Williams regularly travelled to America. "He would go to Washington about three times a year. It was always Washington. That was part of his job." She said that Mr Williams would usually combine the trip with a holiday.

Detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command may have to wait for up to a week to find out how Mr Williams died. The initial postmortem examination proved inconclusive and several tests, thought to include toxicology tests, are now being conducted.

A picture of Mr Williams as a genius who led a solitary existence began to emerge yesterday. Friends described him as athletic, kind and intelligent, but above all extremely private. Dylan Parry, a schoolfriend, described him as academically gifted but socially naive. Mr Parry, 34, said Mr Williams was an isolated child fascinated by mathematics and computers.

The pair attended Uwchradd Bodedern secondary in Anglesey, where Mr Williams was "the kind of person who found it difficult to engage with people on a normal level".

"It was clear he was going to go far, but we all assumed he would end up in academia. Finding out he became a spy was a shock," Mr Parry said.

Geraint Williams, the spy's maths teacher at Bodedern, said he had "definitely the best brain" he had known. "If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it. You didn't have to explain a second time. It all stuck there. It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ."

Online tributes mainly referred to his shy and quiet nature. One fellow Cambridge student, said: "He seemed a shy and quiet chap, but had a peculiarly memorable laugh and smile that are haunting me somewhat today. I knew that Gareth had gone on to work at Cheltenham but would never have imagined his life culminating in this."

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club, said he had known Mr Williams since he joined the club at the age of 17. "It's true that he was very quiet. He wasn't a great conversationalist. We were clubmates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go the pub after a race so he didn't have any close friends in the group. I never spoke to him about his job or his private life. Nobody did with Gareth. It was his cycling that we knew about. A couple of times he won the club's 'best all-rounder' award."