Guardian : Police still have open mind over MI6 codebreaker found in locked bag

Police still have open mind over MI6 codebreaker found in locked bag

Detectives following several leads in Gareth Williams case, after narrative verdict in inquest and review of case by Met

Caroline Davies | December 27, 2012

Scotland Yard retains an open mind about the mystery death of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams, whose naked body was found in a locked sports bag in the bath at his central London flat.

Seven months after launching a review into the baffling case, murder squad detectives continue to investigate a number of lines of inquiry.

Williams was found in the padlocked bag, with the keys discovered under his body inside the bag, in the otherwise empty bath in August 2010.

Westminster coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, passing a narrative verdict at his inquest in May, said she believed the death of Williams, 31, was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated".

She was satisfied that "a third party placed the bag in the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag". She was, therefore, "satisfied that on the balance of probabilities, Gareth was killed unlawfully".

Police have always treated the death as suspicious and unexplained. One theory was that Williams died accidentally, possibly as part of sexual activity that went wrong. They said after the inquest there was no evidence of a criminal hand.

Police launched a review of the case following the inquest verdict, during which Williams's friends and colleagues at MI6, and at GCHQ in Chelthenham from where he was on secondment at the time of his death, have been reinterviewed.

Responding to a report in the Daily Telegraph on Thursday that detectives believe he probably did lock himself into the North Face holdall, a Metropolitan police spokesman said the review was ongoing.

"This remains an active investigation and officers continue to explore a number of lines of inquiry. Officers retain an open mind in relation to the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Williams."

The inquest heard from experts who had tried and failed numerous times to lock themselves into a similar bag. Forensic evidence has uncovered no trace of any other individuals being in the flat at the time. A search for a mysterious Mediterranean couple ended when they were later traced and ruled out of police inquiries.

The inquest had heard that Williams, a keen mountaineer and cyclist from Anglesey who was intensely private and rarely socialised with colleagues, had £20,000 worth of female clothing and shoes at his rented flat in Pimlico, central London. He had shown an interest in bondage websites.

The circumstances of his death also provoked speculation that it might have been connected with his work as an intelligence officer.

The coroner said there was no evidence Williams died as a result of "auto-erotic activity" and said any interest in bondage and female clothing was irrelevant

She levelled devastating criticism at William's employers at MI6, who did not report him missing from work for seven days. She also criticised the role of the Met's counter-terrorism branch, SO15, in the police investigation.

The Telegraph reported on Thursday that it understood detectives have concluded that he probably died alone and are preparing to present their findings to the coroner.

Williams, a maths prodigy, had previously been found tied to his bed by his landlord in Cheltenham years prior to his death. His iPhone, found in his work locker, contained deleted images of him naked in boots posing with his back to the camera.

The inquest heard that he was probably alive if put into the bag, but probably suffocated very soon afterwards from carbon dioxide poisoning (hypercapnia) though the coroner could not rule out the effect of any short-acting poison, which would not have shown up in postmortem forensic tests due to decomposition.

After the inquest, Williams's family called on the Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, to conduct a review of the investigation.