ITV : Police were 'not called for more than a week' after Gareth Williams' disappearance

Police were 'not called for more than a week' after Gareth Williams' disappearance

Dead spy: MI6 staff face inquiry

April 26, 2012

Despite mounting concern for the missing M16 spy Gareth Williams, police were not called for more than a week.

The alarm bells didn't start to ring until Friday 20th August 2010. By this time Gareth hadn't been seen at work in London for a week.

Another three days elapsed before the police were finally informed.

On the Friday afternoon, the human resources (HR) department at GCHQ in Cheltenham told Gareth Williams' line manager in London, where he was on secondment to M16, that he needed to check Gareth's flat, and if he couldn't be found, call in the police.

However, the witness from HR, Helen Yelland, told the inquest she returned to work after the weekend on Monday 23rd August to discover the police still had not been called.

She finally made the call herself to the Metropolitan Police at 4:41pm on Monday afternoon.

She admitted that she would have expected the London line manager at M16 to have contacted the police on the Friday when there was no response from the flat in Pimlico.