Mirror : MI6 'hid evidence': Body-in-bag spy's memory sticks withheld from cops

MI6 'hid evidence': Body-in-bag spy's memory sticks withheld from cops

Tom Pettifor | May 1, 2012

Vital evidence belonging to spy Gareth Williams was not passed by MI6 to detectives investigating his death, an inquest has heard.

Murder squad officers were understood to be furious that nine computer memory sticks and a North Face bag similar to the holdall his body was found in have been withheld from the murder inquiry for 20 MONTHS.

Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire, the officer spearheading the case, said she only found out about the items’ existence for the first time this week.

She told Westminster Coroner’s Court police should have been given the material at the time of Mr Williams’ death in August 2010.

The memory sticks, which were accessed by MI6 following the 31-year-old’s death, had been kept in a cupboard at the spy’s shared office in Vauxhall Cross, central London.

Detective Constable Colin Hall, an officer from SO15, the Met’s counter-terrorism branch, searched Mr Williams’ workplace but made no inventory of his belongings because it included “sensitive” items.

Det Con Hall said a list of items not actually seized as evidence would not be ‘routinely done’.

Anthony O’Toole, representing the family, asked him: “If this hadn’t involved SIS, and it was the Kray twins, or somebody else you were investigating, you would have gone into this in far more detail, wouldn’t you?”

DC Hall replied: “I chose at the time not to write anything down. Obviously I’m under instructions - I do what I’m told.”

The SO15 detective also visited Mr Williams’ flat just hours after his body was first discovered.

Records from the crime scene show he entered at around 8pm, dressed in forensic clothing.

The security services and police have always maintained Mr Williams’ death had no connection with his work.

Asked by Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox if she had known of the memory sticks’ existence, DCI Sebire replied simply: “No.”

Dr Wilcox asked: “Has your team ever been given possession of these?”

DCI Sebire replied: “No.”

And she added: “Had I known of their existence, I would have expected them to be at least reviewed or audited by SO15, and, if information was available, then sent to my team.

“What I knew was Gareth’s email account had been checked, but I didn’t know any other media had been checked. I would have expected to be told.”

Police found Mr Williams’ decaying body in a padlocked holdall in the bathroom of his two-bedroom flat in Pimlico on the evening of August 23, 2010.

His line manager at MI6 had not raised the alarm despite him not having turned up for work since August 16 - the day after he was last seen alive.

Police believe it would have been impossible for him to have locked himself inside, while two spots of partial DNA found on the bag are said to belong to “another contributor”.

It is not known whether or not he was alive when he was sealed inside the holdall.

Detectives are also puzzled by the presence of £20,000 worth of women’s clothes found at the flat - despite friends and family insisting he had not been a transvestite.

The family’s lawyer has previously said relatives feared the flat had been professionally cleaned of evidence by an agency specialising in the “dark arts”.

The hearing continues.