Express : EXCLUSIVE: MI6 spy Gareth Williams found dead in a bag WAS murdered

EXCLUSIVE: MI6 spy Gareth Williams found dead in a bag WAS murdered

THE handles of the locked bag in which MI6 spy Gareth Williams was found dead were fastened together with Velcro, which an expert said last night was proof he was murdered.

By: James Murray | November 17, 2013

Last week Scotland Yard angered the family of the 31-year-old by saying it was possible he had got into the North Face bag on his own and locked it, despite Coroner Fiona Wilcox saying in 2012 she thought he was killed “on the balance of probabilities”.

Peter Faulding worked closely with the Yard on the baffling case and is convinced code breaker Mr Williams could not have managed to get inside the bag, bring the handles up and Velcro them together and then lock it with the padlock on the outside.

“I tried it scores of times and it was impossible,” said Mr Faulding, chief executive of Specialist Group International of Redhill, Surrey.

“I strongly believe another person must have been involved. If he’d done the lock there would have been prints or DNA on it and the same goes for the Velcro. It is simply impossible to do.”

Mr Faulding, whose expertise is finding bodies or people stuck in confined places, made several other disturbing points which raise serious questions about the Yard’s new perception on the mystery.

When Mr Williams’s body was found on August 23, 2010, in his central London flat the door to the bathroom was shut and the light was off, making the room pitch black.

The shower screen was in place, making the space he had to move around very tight if he were to put the bag in the bath and then step into it. There were no palm prints on the bath, which meant Mr Williams, who was single and a maths genius, would have had to stand up in the bag first and then get into it. Mr Faulding said: “Entry into the bag needs to be shoulder first and then pulling the bag under the bottom, this would leave footprints at the end of the bath above the taps but there were none.

“The shower screen was closed. If he was practising getting into the bag this would have been wide open as it creates a barrier. No finger, foot, palm prints or DNA belonging to Gareth Williams were present on the rim of the bath, padlock or zipper. He was not wearing any gloves.” Mr Faulding added: “If he was practising or dabbling in escapology he would have carried a knife in the bag to release himself, he was an intelligent individual and not a chancer.

“When I did it I had a knife around my neck because it is pretty scary. There was no sign of Gareth struggling to get out. He was found in a peaceful foetal position. I believe the bag was placed in the bath to let bodily fluids run down the plug hole.”

Although it was midsummer, the heating in the flat was turned up full, which meant decomposition would be fast and potential forensic clues lost. A doorknob, which could have revealed forensic clues, was removed and Mr Williams’s iPhone was wiped.

Mr Faulding carried out tests for the police on how difficult it would be to get a person into a sports holdall and then put it in the bath.

He said: “I practised putting a person pretending to be unconscious in the bag and then lifting them into the bath and it was easy to do.”

While doing that work he noticed he scuffed the bag on the top of the bath. On the rim of Gareth’s bath some scuff marks were found. Recalling how he felt while trying to lock himself in the bag, he said: “After five minutes zipped into the bag the temperature goes up by 10 degrees and the oxygen level rapidly dropped to 17 per cent.

“Carbon dioxide builds up making it very difficult to work or concentrate. It’d be impossible to close the zip and fit the padlock from the inside without light or leaving prints. Suffocation would be within 30 minutes, probably less, depending on the individual.”

Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said: “The Metropolitan Police’s position is that, on balance, it is a more probable conclusion that there was no other person present when Gareth died.”