UKPA : Bondage clue to spy's death

Bondage clue to spy's death

UKPA | December 22, 2010

Mystery death spy Gareth Williams visited a series of bondage websites in the months before his death at his London flat, police have revealed.

The 31-year-old MI6 codebreaker viewed sites showing people bound and tied, which included do-it-yourself guides.

Detectives also found a £15,000 collection of unworn women's designer clothing, including tops, dresses and shoes in his wardrobe.

They revealed he visited a drag cabaret in east London four days before his death and held tickets to two more. One witness has also come forward to say he was at a popular gay bar in Vauxhall several months before his death.

Mr Williams's decomposing body was found in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his Pimlico flat on August 23. The keys were inside. Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, who is leading the inquiry, said she is convinced someone else helped put him in there. She said police believe they will get to the bottom of the intensely private spy's death by studying his private life.

Speaking at New Scotland Yard, she said: "We remain completely open-minded about how he died. We are appealing today to someone who is out there to come forward and tell us more."

The GCHQ code-breaker, who had been on secondment to the spy agency, was found dead by police after concerns were raised for his welfare. The mysterious circumstances of Mr Williams's death sparked an international frenzy of speculation.

No evidence of drugs, alcohol or poisons were found during a battery of tests conducted by toxicologists. Mrs Sebire 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, brought in to examine the red North Face holdall Mr Williams was found in, concluded he could not have locked it. The zip was held shut by a common travel-style Yale padlock through holes in two zip fasteners.

Tests found the temperature inside the bag would have risen to 30C within three minutes. An expert on survivability in confined spaces from the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) said he would have suffocated in 30 minutes. Mr Williams, of Anglesey, North Wales, was last seen alive on August 15, eight days before he was found dead in the £400,000 property.

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