Independent : MI6 spy 'visited bondage sites' before his death

MI6 spy 'visited bondage sites' before his death

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent | December 23, 2010

Photofits have been released of a man and a woman whom police want to question in connection with the death of an MI6 spy found dead in a padlocked holdall in his central London flat.

Detectives say Gareth Williams, 31, was unlikely to have been alone at the time of his death. The couple were seen visiting the flat where he lived in Pimlico, south-west London, several weeks before the decomposing body in the bag was discovered in a bathtub on 23 August.

Police disclosed yesterday that Mr Williams, who worked as a codebreaker for the intelligence service, owned £15,000 worth of women's designer clothes. He had also viewed a number of bondage websites which showed people bound and tied.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the investigation, revealed that police have forensic evidence that other people were in the flat, whom they have not been able to trace.

She added that an expert who was brought in to examine the red holdall in which Mr Williams was found concluded that he could not have locked it.

Mr Williams, who had been seconded from GCHQ to MI6, had visited a drag night at a club called Bistrotheque in Mile End, east London just 10 days before his death, and a gay bar called Barcode in May. He had taken a keen interest in clothes and had completed fashion design courses at Central Saint Martins art college in London.

Mr Williams, from Holyhead on Anglesey, north Wales, owned four mobile telephones, two of which were "pay as you go". Investigators have failed to trace any calls to the couple who visited Mr Williams' address in late June or July. The man and woman, described as being in their twenties and of Mediterranean appearance, were let in by another tenant in the building; they told her they had keys to the flat where Mr Williams lived.

At the time, Mr Williams was known to have been away. DCI Sebire said: "Gareth was a very private individual. We know he would not have given his keys to anyone other than close family. I am asking this man or woman or anyone who recognises them to encourage them to come forward and assist us. There is forensic evidence [in the flat] that indicates the presence of other people that we have not been able to eliminate yet."

Referring to Mr Williams' visits to bondage sites, DCI Sebire said: "It is not like continual browsing. It was not every evening or weekend. The sites primarily feature women, and there are guides on how to do certain things." He also said, "We do not have any evidence to suggest that he was gay."

Tests on Mr Williams' body showed no evidence that he had been poisoned, drugged or under the influence of alcohol.

Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell added that detectives hoped that by revealing details of Mr Williams' personal life, it would encourage people to come forward.