BBC : Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

May 8, 2012

The inquest into the death of MI6 employee Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a padlocked sports bag in his central London flat in August 2010, found that he was "on the balance of probabilities" unlawfully killed.

But what is known about the 31-year-old code-breaker - described by his family as "a very private person"?

Mr Williams, originally from Holyhead, north Wales, worked as a communications officer at government listening post GCHQ, in Cheltenham, but was on a three-year secondment to MI6 in London.

Police officers went to his MI6-owned top-floor flat at 36 Alderney Street - in a part of Pimlico described by a neighbour as "a very mixed area of bankers and politicians" - on Monday 23 August.

They went there after colleagues contacted the police earlier that day saying they had not seen Mr Williams for at least 10 days.

They found his naked body, which had been padlocked inside a zipped-up large red North Face sports holdall, in the empty bath of an ensuite bathroom of the master bedroom.

Police, who have repeatedly said the death remains "suspicious and unexplained", now believe he died in the early hours of Tuesday 16 August.

Mr Williams, a keen cyclist who often took part in road races and time trials, was brought up on the island of Anglesey and attended Bodedern High School.

A talented pupil, he graduated from Bangor University with a first class degree in maths aged 17 after beginning his university studies while at secondary school.

His maths teacher at Bodedern, Geraint Williams, has praised Gareth as an "exceptional" pupil who was "the best logician" he had met.

"If you explained something once to Gareth he remembered it, you didn't have to explain it again," he said.

"It didn't surprise me at all that he was very interested in codes and ciphers and it didn't really surprise me that he was recruited by GCHQ.

"He was definitely going to go into something like that, with his brain."

'Loving son'

Mr Williams went on to study for a postgraduate certificate in mathematics at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 2000, but dropped out a year later before taking up the job at GCHQ in Cheltenham.

His boss there has spoken of him as a "world-class" intelligence officer and "something of a prodigy".

Stephen Gale said it was "quite remarkable" that Mr Williams - who joined GCHQ aged 21 - had achieved what he had at such a young age.

Mr Gale said: "Colleagues recall a young man who was very close to his father - he spoke about their climbing trips together.

"They remember him as a keen cyclist. One colleague said it was like a red bullet flying around the place."

In the days after his death, his family described Mr Williams in a statement as a "generous, loving son, brother, and friend" whose loss had devastated them.

They remembered him as "a great athlete" who "loved cycling and music", and as "a very private person".

He often returned home to Anglesey to mother Ellen and father Ian, who works at the Wylfa Nuclear Power Station.

Keith Thompson, of Holyhead Cycling Club - joined by Mr Williams at the age of 17 - said he had last seen the "lovely young man" at a club meeting on Boxing Day.

"We were club mates but Gareth wasn't the sort to go to the pub after a race, so he didn't have any close friends in the group," he said.

And a cyclist at Cambridge University's bicycle club described Mr Williams as "a shy chap" with a "peculiarly memorable laugh and smile".

Mr Williams' uncle, Anglesey councillor William Hughes, meanwhile, said his "very talented" nephew "would never talk about his work - and the family knew not to ask, really".

A neighbour in Pimlico said he and others had never seen Mr Williams, adding: "It's not like you'd tell your neighbours if you were a spy."

Police 'did wrong'

In late December 2010, police revealed some "embarrassing, hurtful and distressing" details about Mr Williams which they said was necessary in the search for evidence.

They said he owned £15,000-worth of unworn women's designer clothing, which were kept in six boxes at his flat, and that he had visited a drag cabaret in east London four days before his death and had tickets to two more.

Police said he occasionally spent between 30 minutes and an hour on bondage sites.

They also said a witness had reported seeing him in a gay bar but that they did not know for certain he was gay.

However, in April 2011 Mr Williams' close friend Sian Lloyd-Jones questioned suggestions his death was linked to his private life and called on police to broaden their inquiry.

She told the police "did wrong" by releasing information about women's clothing "but didn't reveal that there was £10,000 of mountaineering equipment as well".

Ms Lloyd-Jones said he was not gay and the women's clothes were too small for him and may have been intended for her or her sister.

Elizabeth Guthrie - the second friend to appear before the coroner - described her friendship with Mr Williams as based on their mutual love of history, art, Japanese Manga cartoons, travel and humorous anecdotes.

Ms Guthrie remembered his "brilliant sense of humour" and "enormous intellect".

She also said the women's clothing found by police "certainly would not be for him" - that he had no interest in cross-dressing and she believed he was "straight".

Mr Williams' sister, Ceri Subbe, said she believed the items of women's clothing were possibly intended as gifts.

She also told the inquest her brother's enthusiasm about his job had begun to fade.

"He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office," her statement said.

Ms Subbe added that Mr Williams had "encountered more red tape than he was comfortable with" in his role.

The inquest into the death of the MI6 officer later heard he was once found tied to his bed by his former landlady in Cheltenham.

Jennifer Elliot said she once found him tied to his bedstead in his boxer shorts in what she thought was a "sexually motivated" act. She said he had called for help when he could not untie himself.

'Dark arts'

Mr Williams returned to his flat - half a mile from MI6 headquarters on the banks of the River Thames - on Wednesday 11 August 2010 after a fly-drive holiday to the west coast of the US.

Police say he had been shopping in London's West End and Knightsbridge areas a number of times since then.

CCTV images captured on Saturday 14 August showed him entering Holland Park tube station at about 1500 BST.

On Sunday 15 August, he went to Harrods after visiting a cash machine and, at about 1430 BST, CCTV images showed him in Hans Crescent, heading towards Sloane Street, near the Dolce & Gabbana store.

A post-mortem examination and toxicology tests - which found no trace of drugs, alcohol or poison - and the police investigation have all failed to establish a cause of death.

Police believe that Mr Williams, whose family think may have been killed by an agent "specialising in the dark arts of the secret services", was helped into the bag.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox said it was unlikely he got into the bag by himself but doubted his death would ever be explained.

Scotsman : Gareth Williams profile: Maths genius with a solitary lifestyle

Gareth Williams profile: Maths genius with a solitary lifestyle

May 3, 2012

Gareth Williams crammed his life with secrets – in and out of work.

The 31-year-old excelled as a spy, producing “world-class” code-breaking intelligence for MI6 and the eavesdropping station GCHQ.

Colleagues, friends, family and police queued up to pay tribute to his extraordinary ability, which saw him land a first-class mathematics degree aged 17.

But the teetotal fitness enthusiast lived a solitary personal life that was dramatically removed from the world of espionage.

Police, who painstakingly pieced together his unlikely interests, discovered a fiercely private bachelor fascinated by women’s clothes and drag-queen culture.

He enrolled on a fashion course and collected £20,000 of unworn designer women’s clothing at his pristine flat, including 26 pairs of designer women’s shoes. Small and medium-sized dresses were hung up in his wardrobes, along with women’s wigs, including one Mr Williams had bought on a recent trip to Las Vegas.

Internet searches by Mr Williams and a video taken on his Apple iPhone suggested he wore the shoes.

The flamboyant interests were a far cry from the rigid discipline of work, where he was fast-tracked through the ranks at GCHQ before arriving at MI6 on secondment.

Stephen Gale, his boss at GCHQ’s Cheltenham base, said Mr Williams stunned fellow intelligence specialists with his code-breaking talents when he landed his first job at 21.

He cycled around the Gloucestershire hills “like a red bullet” but won the respect of his colleagues for his “warm smile” and sense of humour under pressure, Mr Gale said. Bosses were so impressed that they paid for him to gain further qualifications in advanced mathematics at Cambridge University.

Mr Williams had won two awards at GCHQ, one for a “Herculean effort” in his top-secret work, Mr Gale added.

But the keen cyclist and fell runner missed the countryside after arriving in London.

Sister Ceri Subbe said: “He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office.”

Ms Subbe said her brother was immensely close with his family, from Anglesey.

“In terms of a big brother figure, Gareth was perfect,” she said.

“It’s impossible to do justice to Gareth’s impressive character without meeting him.”

Mr Williams and Ms Subbe “had a truly magical time” during their last meeting for “dainty finger sandwiches” at the Ritz hotel, she said.

Sky : Spy Death: The Evidence Behind The Theories

Spy Death: The Evidence Behind The Theories

May 2, 2012

Three general theories have been put forward to explain the death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, with evidence to support each one.

:: Suicide

The theory that Mr Williams' chose to take his own life is perhaps the most prosaic explanation for his death and the inquest has heard evidence that suggested he was unhappy with his work.

He had passed an exam to become fully operational with MI6 just months before his death but his sister said he disliked office culture and the rat race - and had spoken of friction among colleagues.

One common theme throughout the inquest has been Mr Williams' prodigious intelligence, which saw him secure a first-class mathematics degree at the age of 17 before his eventual fast-tracking through the ranks at GCHQ.

Correlations have often been drawn between depression and the high levels of perfectionism evident in Mr Williams - an impression his intense fitness regime and pristinely tidy flat did little to dispel.

Irrespective of his state of mind, however, no-one has been able to fully explain how he would have been able to lock the bag his body was found in from the outside.

Stephen Gale, his boss at GCHQ's Cheltenham base, said Mr Williams stunned fellow intelligence specialists with his codebreaking talents when he landed his first job at 21.

"He was considered something of a prodigy and it was quite remarkable that he had achieved those levels of qualifications at such a young age," he said.

It could be argued that such outstanding achievement at such an early age could lead to the kind of listlessness later in life that can eventually develop into suicidal thoughts.

But Mr Williams' reputation as a "world-class" codebreaker may also give rise to the more outlandish theory that he took his own life while deliberately leaving an apparently inextricable riddle.

:: Accident

Mr Williams' interest in women's clothing - on which receipts showed he spent around £20,000 during 2008 and 2009 - has been among the most prominently-reported details of the case.

His curiosity with drag queen culture has also been a focus for the media, as has his apparent interest in bondage footage.

The inquest heard that in 2007, Mr Williams' landlord and landlady had to rescue him in the middle of the night after he apparently tied his wrists to the headboard of his bed to see if he could "get free".

Such revelations could contribute to a theory that Mr Williams' death was an accident, even the result of a sex game gone-wrong.

However, close friends say he never mentioned cross-dressing and he is only known to have been to see a drag act once.

Detective Constable Simon Warren also moved to quell speculation around the 31-year-old's private life, saying his interest in bondage footage on his computer was "an isolated (incident) among a sea of other data".

And it is not entirely inconceivable that a third party may have manufactured an image of someone with flamboyant personal habits in order to distract from a more sinister truth.

Indeed, this possibility was acknowledged by the coroner in her summing up, when she questioned whether leaks to the media about Mr Williams' cross dressing were attempts to manipulate evidence.

She pointed out that most of the women's clothes found would have been too small for him and said the lack of female underwear was "inconsistent".

Mr Williams was described as a cautious risk assessor by his sister, which the coroner said did not "square" with the suggestion of an interest in bondage.

:: Murder

Despite having no suspects, the police have said from the outset that they believe a third party was involved in Mr Williams' death.

Found naked, curled up in a padlocked North Face holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, bag experts have said that even renowned escapologist Harry Houdini would have struggled to lock himself in the bag.

One even tried and failed to carry out the task more than 300 times before saying they were "unbelievable scenarios".

Lawyers for his family have suggested "dark arts" of the secret services were responsible.

The recent emergence of the news that MI6 failed to hand over nine computer memory sticks from Mr Williams' office to Scotland Yard has done little to confound such claims.

Conspiracy theories are fuelled by the fact that the force's counter-terror SO15 branch, which has specialist security clearance and acted as a conduit between MI6 and the investigation team, only took three items from Mr Williams' office - his phone, some notes and a copy of his birth certificate.

Detective Superintendent Michael Broster, who was the main liaison from SO15, said: "I have seen no information or evidence that someone is involved. I am not saying that a member of SIS is not involved. I don't know."

Poisoning and asphyxiation are the "foremost contenders" in causing Mr Williams' death, pathologists said.

But experts believe there would have been signs of damage to his fingers and hands if he had struggled to get out of the bag within the three minutes it would have taken to suffocate.

The fact that Mr Williams was dead for up to 10 days before his post-mortem examination meant many poisons and/or bruise marks could have disappeared from his body.

Another matter to have attracted suspicion is MI6's failure to report his absence for more than a week after his disappearance.

Forensic experts hope ongoing DNA tests on a green towel discovered in his kitchen may still yield a breakthrough.

But given the assumed capabilities of MI6, the fact that no physical evidence has yet been found to establish the involvement of a third party is unlikely to halt speculation that secret service agents were to blame.

This Is London : Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

Profile: MI6 spy Gareth Williams

Paul Cheston | May 2, 2012

Gareth Williams’ life of complexity and contradiction was matched by the mystery of his death.

A brilliant academic prodigy, cherished and honoured as a team man by GCHQ, rejected as an outsider by MI6 colleagues.

“We were very lucky to recruit him”, said Stephen Gale, his former boss at the Government listening post, where he was responsible for “world class work”.

His MI6 line manager could not be bothered to look for him when he went missing.

A cyclist, fell runner, climber and as fit as they come. His family and his closest women friends unhesitatingly considered him straight.

Yet in his spare room, separate from his day clothes he wore to work and social and sporting activities, there was £20,000 of women’s clothing and 26 pairs of women’s shoes and boots.

“For somebody having his rent paid, socialising little and modest in food and drink, it’s possible it would have taken up a large chunk of his salary,” said Mr Gale.

His family insist the clothes were intended as gifts.

But whether they were intended for others or himself, an operational officer in the Special Intelligence Service, even one with such minimal overheads, is less than handsomely paid, despite a 11% pay rise when he transferred from Cheltenham-based GCHQ.

Williams was a hot house academic - a first class honours degree and doctorate by 21 - but also a country boy from North Wales who “longed for the freedom to cycle without running the risk of being run over by a bendy bus,” as his sister Ceri Subbe put it.

He hated the MI6 “culture of post work drinks, flash car competitions, rat race and office friction” and just wanted to go back to Cheltenham and “take his projects with him.”

In scenes closer to Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer than Ian Fleming’s Bond or the Jason Bourne series, he shared with three other colleagues a small 15ft x 12 ft office at Vauxhall Cross with just three tales and four cabinets.

His forte was technology - it was how he won he and his team won GCHQ’s prestigious Mary Church award for significant achievement in cryptic analysis which was awarded to his team in 2009.

Mr Gale spoke of how the director of GCHQ had described “a herculean effort by an extraordinary team.”

MI6 was training Williams to become a support officer to “agents” in the field and, after initial difficulties, he had made impressive strides when he died.

But surely, while he could have been a useful asset if he was turned by a hostile foreign power as a mole in SIS, he was too junior and too far from the frontline to be worth murdering - by either side.

At GCHQ they honoured his memory with a posthumous award for his achievements.

At MI6, where he was never considered one of us, they could not wait to see the back of him.

His friends and sister remembered primarily his kindness, his humour, his intelligence, his loyalty. His line manager at MI6 used similarly warm words, describing him as “a quiet intellectual, very clever at the technical aspects of his job but socially shy and introverted, a very private person”, but in a so-what, almost derogatory sense.

His landlady in Cheltenham, Jennifer Elliot, found him tied to his bedposts in the middle of the night in what she considered some sort of sexual ritual.

“Gareth, we cannot have you doing this,” her husband told him.

But such was the loyalty he engendered, she refused to utter a word about it under a barrage of questions, and money, from Fleet Street reporters, only speaking of it to detectives searching for clues to resolve this inexplicable death.

NZ Herald : Body in a bag: Doubts over spy's state of mind

Body in a bag: Doubts over spy's state of mind

April 30, 2012

The handlers of body in the bag spy Gareth Williams raised concerns about his state of mind on the day he was found dead inside his flat.

The inquest into Mr Williams' death heard that a senior executive at GCHQ, the Government's secret listening post, told police that the MI6 spy may have reacted badly after being removed from a covert operation.

A transcript of the call revealed that the executive added: We are not sure how he's taken that.

The warning was passed on to officers searching for Mr Williams, who had been missing from work for more than a week.

He was expected at MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, South London, on Monday August 16, 2010.

But his bosses did not raise the alarm until Friday and waited until after the weekend before deciding to call the police.

Mr Williams' naked body was discovered in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, Central London, on the evening of August 23.

The GCHQ warning has been seized on by Mr Williams' parents as possible evidence of a cover-up about the truth of what happened to their son. The intelligence services have always claimed the spy's death had nothing to do with his secret work.

But the warning message appears to contradict this, as it suggests they were concerned about him after they had told him to withdraw from a secret operation.

Gareth's parents, Ian and Ellen Williams, and sister Ceri, from Anglesey, North Wales, believe the dark arts of an unnamed secret agency may have been involved in his death.

Evidence submitted to Westminster Coroner's Court confirms that Mr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ in Cheltenham, had been involved in covert operations in the months before he died.

The spy worked in a four-man team as an expert code breaker and shortly before his death had been in contact with two secret agents working in the field in the UK.

On August 11 he returned to London following a six-week visit to the US, where he had been part of a contingent of UK spies sent to a computer intelligence conference, known as the Black Hat.

The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said on Friday that the Las Vegas conference attracted criminal hackers who attend the briefings to keep up with the latest developments in computer technology.

But it is also used by security agencies from Britain and America to target hackers. The FBI has been reported to have sent teams of undercover agents to the conference to break up hacking cells, and al so to mount clandestine operations to recruit criminal hackers as informants.

If Mr Williams had gone to Las Vegas as part of an active intelligence operation he could have been exposed to dangers from criminal hacking gangs.

But GCHQ insists that its officers in the US faced no greater risk than they did in the UK.

His bosses also say Mr Williams, who was due to end his secondment with MI6 in September 2010, had not been working on an undercover operation at the time he went missing.

The eight-day delay in GCHQ and MI6 telling police he was officially missing has provoked accusations from his family that they knew something horrible had happened to him.

The inquest heard of a transcript of the call, made at 4.41pm on the 23rd by senior GCHQ officer Helen Yelland, in which she said: He was last spoken to on Friday 13th. He was expected into work all of last week and did not appear. Both the landline and mobile phones are not picked up. The mobile is switched off. His sister was expecting to stay with him on Wednesday this week and she has not been able to contact him.

The Metropolitan Police operator asked if there were any concerns, to which Ms Yelland replies: He is going to be coming back to Cheltenham because he's just been pulled back from a job he's supposed to do and we are not sure how he's taken that.

Police suspect another person was involved in Mr Williams' death and experts believe he was likely to have been unconscious or dead when he was placed in the bag.

Forensic experts are still examining Mr Williams' mobile phone after it emerged on Friday that all the data on it had been wiped.

Detective Constable Robert Burrows told the inquest that he was unable to say when the iPhone, which was found in the living room of the flat, had been wiped before or after the spy's death.

The inquest has also heard how traces of the date-rape drug GHB were found in Mr Williams' body.

Forensic scientist Denise Stanworth said the traces were probably naturally occurring, which is common after death, but admitted she could not rule out that it had been taken.

MI6 has apologised for failing to raise the alarm about his disappearance, conceding the error may have hampered police inquiries. The inquest will tomorrow be told the results of an investigation into a second post-mortem examination ordered by the coroner's office in the days after Mr Williams' death.

The spy's family want to know why the police were not informed of this post-mortem examination, as they would have been in an ordinary murder inquiry.

During the inquest, spies from MI6 and GCHQ have given evidence behind screens to protect their identities and Foreign Secretary William Hague has signed an order prohibiting the disclosure of details of Mr Williams' work. The family's barrister, Anthony O'Toole, told the inquest that since MI6 performed such an important job it was even more vital that Mr Williams' team leader known as Witness G should have done more to raise the alarm about the spy's absence from work.

It took Witness G five days before he visited Mr Williams' flat. The team leader has told the inquest he had been preparing to go into the field on a secret operation in the week the Welsh spy went missing.

The coroner has heard the dead spy was considered a world-class intelligence officer by GCHQ. Stephen Gale, Mr Williams' boss in Cheltenham, said the maths prodigy had won two awards for his code-breaking work.

Dr Wilcox has intimated that she is prepared to consider a verdict of unlawful killing if she believes another person was involved in the death.

The family want the coroner to explore the possibility that Mr Williams' flat may have been wiped of other people's DNA and the spy's office computers tampered with.

The electronic equipment was handed to Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command, SO15, on August 27, four days after the death came to light, the inquest heard.

Mr O'Toole noted there was not any statement from any person at GCHQ to say that equipment was not tampered with in the interim period.

But Superintendent Michael Broster, who was responsible for SO15's involvement in the investigation, insisted Mr Williams' workplace had been sealed and taped.

- Daily Mail

Australian : MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams may have been poisoned

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams may have been poisoned

Fiona Hamilton | April 28, 2012

THE MI6 spy found padlocked inside a bag may have taken drugs or been poisoned before he died, it was revealed yesterday.

Experts are unable to rule out a range of "volatile agents" or poisons such as cyanide being used on Gareth Williams, 31, whose body had decomposed badly in the week before his colleagues reported him missing.

The codebreaker's inquest was also told that he could have been vulnerable to "hostile and malign" third parties after making unauthorised searches on the agency's sensitive database.

A Secret Intelligence Service witness known only as SIS F said that there were a "small number of searches for which we could not see any clear operational justification".

She told Westminster Coroner's Court there was a "theoretical possibility" that a third party could use that knowledge to "put pressure on Gareth", although there was no evidence that that had occurred. The spy's family have previously suggested that agents specialising in the "dark arts" might have been involved in, or tried to cover up, his death in August 2010.

MI6 offered a "profound apology" to Williams's parents, Ian and Ellen, and his sister, Ceri Subbe, for the failure to raise the alarm about his absence from work. SIS F acknowledged that delays hampered the police inquiry and said that the authorities should have been called within four hours.

The spy's relatives walked out in tears after learning that no disciplinary action had been taken against the MI6 manager who did not report him missing for seven days even though he knew him to be diligent and a meticulous timekeeper.

Anthony O'Toole, representing the Williamses, said that the delays had "horrendous results". As well as material evidence being lost, Williams's family were unable to say goodbye properly because his body was in an "unacceptable state".

Williams had been in the bag for up to nine days and his remains were such that tests for drugs and poisons could not be relied on. The court was told that a "wide range of poisons", anaesthetics and other "volatile agents" might have been used on the spy, who was discovered in the North Face holdall placed in the bath at his flat in Pimlico, Central London. Other substances that could not be ruled out included the legal high amyl nitrate, helium, chloroform and nitrus oxide.

Denise Stanworth, a toxicologist, said that traces of the party drug GHB were found in Williams's bloodstream and urine but had "probably" been produced naturally after he died. Asked how reliable the tests could be, she said: "In terms of many of the drugs, reliable, but in terms of the more volatile substances, not that reliable."

Mr Williams, who was due to leave his MI6 secondment and return to GCHQ in Cheltenham, was found on August 23 but his last known activity took place on August 16.

The investigation into the death has always focused on whether he could have got himself into the holdall, although police believe that a third party was involved.

His Cheltenham landlady had once had to free him after finding him tied up in bed and £26,000 of women's designer clothing and shoes were found in the flat, near MI6 headquarters.

The police have previously disclosed that he visited websites about bondage and claustrophilia.

SIS F said that Mr Williams had passed all vetting processes and she appeared to indicate that such lifestyle preferences would not have rendered him unsuitable for MI6. There was no indication that his death was linked to his work as he was a low-risk officer.

Stephen Gale, his boss at GCHQ who has since retired, said that Mr Williams could have afforded the expensive clothes though they would have taken a "large chunk" out of his salary.

Daily Mail : Warning call by GCHQ boss to police about Gareth aborting secret mission may hold key to his death

Warning call by GCHQ boss to police about Gareth aborting secret mission may hold key to his death

* Gareth Williams's spy bosses expressed concerns about his state of mind
* He'd been pulled from a case and missing from work for a week

By Robert Verkaik and Stephanie Condron | April 28. 2012

The handlers of ‘body in the bag’ spy Gareth Williams raised concerns about his state of mind on the day he was found dead inside his flat.

The inquest into Mr Williams’s death heard that a senior executive at GCHQ, the Government’s secret listening post, told police that the MI6 spy may have reacted badly after being removed from a covert operation.

A transcript of the call revealed that the executive added: ‘We are not sure how he’s taken that.’

The warning was passed on to officers searching for Mr Williams, who had been missing from work for more than a week.

He was expected at MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, South London, on Monday August 16, 2010.

But his bosses did not raise the alarm until Friday and waited until after the weekend before deciding to call the police.

Mr Williams’s naked body was discovered in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, Central London, on the evening of August 23.

The GCHQ warning has been seized on by Mr Williams’s parents as possible evidence of a cover-up about the truth of what happened to their son.

The intelligence services have always claimed the spy’s death had nothing to do with his secret work.

But the warning message appears to contradict this, as it suggests they were concerned about him after they had told him to withdraw from a secret operation.

Gareth’s parents, Ian and Ellen Williams, and sister Ceri, from Anglesey, North Wales, believe the ‘dark arts’ of an unnamed secret agency may have been involved in his death.

Evidence submitted to Westminster Coroner’s Court confirms that Mr Williams, who was on secondment to MI6 from GCHQ in Cheltenham, had been involved in covert operations in the months before he died.

The spy worked in a four-man team as an expert code breaker and shortly before his death had been in contact with two secret agents working in the field in the UK.

On August 11 he returned to London following a six-week visit to the US, where he had been part of a contingent of UK spies sent to a computer intelligence conference, known as the Black Hat.

The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said on Friday that the Las Vegas conference attracted criminal hackers who attend the briefings to keep up with the latest developments in computer technology.

But it is also used by security agencies from Britain and America to target hackers.

The FBI has been reported to have sent teams of undercover agents to the conference to break up hacking cells, and also to mount clandestine operations to recruit criminal hackers as informants.

If Mr Williams had gone to Las Vegas as part of an active intelligence operation he could have been exposed to dangers from criminal hacking gangs.

But GCHQ insists that its officers in the US faced no greater risk than they did in the UK.

His bosses also say Mr Williams, who was due to end his secondment with MI6 in September 2010, had not been working on an undercover operation at the time he went missing.

The eight-day delay in GCHQ and MI6 telling police he was officially missing has provoked accusations from his family that they knew something ‘horrible’ had happened to him.

The inquest heard of a transcript of the call, made at 4.41pm on the 23rd by senior GCHQ officer Helen Yelland, in which she said: ‘He was last spoken to on Friday 13th. He was expected into work all of last week and did not appear.

Both the landline and mobile phones are not picked up. The mobile is switched off. His sister was expecting to stay with him on Wednesday this week and she has not been able to contact him.’

The Metropolitan Police operator asked if there were any concerns, to which Ms Yelland replies: ‘He is going to be coming back to Cheltenham because he’s just been pulled back from a job he’s supposed to do and we are not sure how he’s taken that.’

Police suspect another person was involved in Mr Williams’s death and experts believe he was likely to have been unconscious or dead when he was placed in the bag.

Forensic experts are still examining Mr Williams’s mobile phone after it emerged on Friday that all the data on it had been wiped.

Detective Constable Robert Burrows told the inquest that he was unable to say when the iPhone, which was found in the living room of the flat, had been wiped before or after the spy’s death.

The inquest has also heard how traces of the date-rape drug GHB were found in Mr Williams’s body.

Forensic scientist Denise Stanworth said the traces were ‘probably’ naturally occurring, which is common after death, but admitted she could not rule out that it had been taken.

MI6 has apologised for failing to raise the alarm about his disappearance, conceding the error may have hampered police inquiries.

The inquest will tomorrow be told the results of an investigation into a second post-mortem examination ordered by the coroner’s office in the days after Mr Williams’s death.

The spy’s family want to know why the police were not informed of this post-mortem examination, as they would have been in an ordinary murder inquiry.

During the inquest, spies from MI6 and GCHQ have given evidence behind screens to protect their identities and Foreign Secretary William Hague has signed an order prohibiting the disclosure of details of Mr Williams’s work.

The family’s barrister, Anthony O’Toole, told the inquest that since MI6 performed such an ‘important job’ it was even more vital that Mr Williams’s team leader – known as Witness G – should have done more to raise the alarm about the spy’s absence from work.

It took Witness G five days before he visited Mr Williams’s flat.

The team leader has told the inquest he had been preparing to go into the field on a secret operation in the week the Welsh spy went missing.

The coroner has heard the dead spy was considered a ‘world-class’ intelligence officer by GCHQ. Stephen Gale, Mr Williams’s boss in Cheltenham, said the maths prodigy had won two awards for his code-breaking work.

Dr Wilcox has intimated that she is prepared to consider a verdict of unlawful killing if she believes another person was involved in the death.

The family want the coroner to explore the possibility that Mr Williams’s flat may have been wiped of other people’s DNA and the spy’s office computers tampered with.

The electronic equipment was handed to Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, SO15, on August 27, four days after the death came to light, the inquest heard.

Mr O’Toole noted there was not ‘any statement from any person at GCHQ to say that equipment was not tampered with’ in the interim period.

But Superintendent Michael Broster, who was responsible for SO15’s involvement in the investigation, insisted Mr Williams’s workplace had been ‘sealed and taped’.

West End Extra : ‘Shy’ Gareth... Why the speculation won’t end

‘Shy’ Gareth... Why the speculation won’t end [scroll down]

by JOSH LOEB | April 27, 2012

THE discovery of Gareth Williams’s body in bizarre circumstances in a flat in a quiet Pimlico street in August 2010 sparked raging speculation and numerous news stories about his private life.

There has been discussion at the inquest over whether the flat in Alderney Street was a “safe house” for MI6, also known as SIS.

This has been denied by the security services, but yesterday Anthony O’Toole, the lawyer acting for Mr Williams’s family, suggested that there was evidence that “since 2003 the tenant of the flat has been the Secretary of State”– in other words that it had been occupied continuously by agents from MI6 or GCHQ since that year.

Mr O’Toole asked if it was “possible that it may have been known to certain parties as being the residence of SIS”.

It appears Mr Williams rarely strayed far from the area of Westminster in which he lived. He would go for walks around Belgravia and regularly shopped in Dover Street Market, Mayfair.

A collection of women’s clothing, estimated to have a total value of around £20,000, was found in Mr Williams’s flat.

Stephen Gale, a director of “operational analysis” at GCHQ at the time Mr Williams worked there, said the code-breaker had been given a pay rise shortly before moving to London, but he estimated the extremely expensive, high-end clothing would have taken up “a large chunk of this salary”.

Carol Kirtin, who worked in a store in Dover Street where Mr Williams had shopped, said in a witness statement: “He was very different to most male customers. He struck me as being shy and reserved.”

BBC : MI6 spy death inquest: 'No drugs or poison found' in body

MI6 spy death inquest: 'No drugs or poison found' in body

April 26, 2012

MI6 officer Gareth Williams was probably not drugged, drunk or poisoned when he died, a toxicologist has told the inquest into his death.

But Denise Stanworth said she could not rule this out because of the time which had elapsed between his death and the post-mortem examination.

Mr Williams' body was found locked in a holdall at his London flat on 23 August 2010 - a week after his death.

His boss at GCHQ in Cheltenham earlier hailed him as "something of a prodigy".

Giving evidence, forensic scientist Ms Stanworth said some anaesthetics, solvents and the substance amyl nitrate may not have been detectable, because his body was left for so long.

It took a week for MI6 to investigate Mr Williams' disappearance, meaning the post-mortem exam was carried out nine days after he died.

A small amount of alcohol, and traces of the sedative GHB were found, but both were likely to have been produced by his body as it decomposed after death.

An extensive search for "old-fashioned poison" came back negative, although Ms Stanworth said volatile agents could not be ruled out.

For understandable reasons spies do not like to come out from the shadows.

But over the past two days a procession of intelligence officers have had to account for their actions in public, albeit behind screens.

On Thursday, a senior official at MI6 acknowledged the one-week delay in finding Gareth Williams' body caused more grief for the family, and had an impact on the police investigation.

The body was too badly decomposed to provide forensic clues.

A GCHQ official has said action should have been taken on the first day of absence in line with policy.

It still is not clear why the policy was not followed.

It appears too that Gareth Williams' line manager at MI6 has not been disciplined for this.

Mr Williams' former boss at government listening agency GCHQ earlier described him as a "world-class" intelligence officer.

Stephen Gale said Mr Williams had joined GCHQ aged 21 with a first class degree in mathematics and PhD in computer sciences. "It was quite remarkable that he had achieved those levels of qualifications at such a young age," he said.

The agency paid for him to gain further qualifications in advanced mathematics at Cambridge University.

Mr Gale said: "Colleagues recall a young man who was very close to his father - he spoke about their climbing trips together.

"They remember him as a keen cyclist. One colleague said it was like a red bullet flying around the place."

Mr Williams was on a three-year secondment with MI6 in London but wanted to return to his role at GCHQ.

Profoundly sorry

On Thursday morning, an MI6 officer denied the secret service was involved in a cover-up over the codebreaker's death.

The officer - Witness F - gave evidence anonymously from behind a screen.

She apologised to Mr Williams' family on behalf of MI6, saying they were "profoundly sorry" for the delay in reporting the spy missing.

Witness F admitted that HR policy was not followed and that it "clearly took too long" to notice the codebreaker's absence from work.

She blamed Mr Williams' line manager - Witness G - for a "breakdown in communication", but said he should not face disciplinary action.

Mr Williams' relatives walked out of the inquest in tears during Witness F's evidence, and their lawyer Anthony O'Toole said the agency had shown a "total disregard for Gareth's whereabouts and safety".

Mr O'Toole blamed the delay for preventing the family from saying goodbye to Mr Williams while his body was in an "acceptable form", and for making it more or less impossible for detectives to establish how he died.

Bondage websites

During her evidence, Witness F denied that officers from the secret service entered Mr Williams' flat, before or after the discovery of his body.

She said that MI6 had not tampered with any electronic evidence on Mr Williams' computer, and denied the secret service had leaked information to the media that the codebreaker visited bondage and sadomasochistic websites.

Mr O'Toole asked Witness F whether speculation about Mr Williams' private life might have made him unsuitable for intelligence agency work.

She indicated his sexual preferences would not, in themselves, pose a problem: "There's no set template as to what [an employee's] lifestyle should be. Individuals have lifestyles and sexual choices which are perfectly legitimate.

"Our concern in the vetting process is to identify whether anything in the individual's background, lifestyle, creates a risk for him."

An internal secret intelligence services' review in 2011 found no link between the codebreaker's death and his work.

Prestwich and Whitefield Guide : Spies given anonymity at inquest

Spies given anonymity at inquest

Press Association | April 23, 2012

Four intelligence agents have been given "public interest" anonymity as the inquest into the "highly controversial" death of an MI6 spy found in a holdall opened.

Coroner Fiona Wilcox said "there will be a real risk of harm" to national security and international relations if some of those giving evidence about Gareth Williams are exposed.

The only confirmed member of GCHQ who can be named is Stephen Gale, Dr Wilcox said.

Evidence began with Dr Wilcox expressing sympathy to family members, who fear "some agency specialising in the dark arts" leaves them with no way of knowing how and why he died.

The naked and decomposing body of Mr Williams, 31, of Anglesey, North Wales, was found in the bath of his home in Pimlico, central London, in August 2010. He was curled up in a large North Face holdall, sealed by a padlock.

Ceri Subbe, Mr Williams's sister, sat with other family members in the wood-panelled courtroom as evidence began.

Ms Wilcox summarised evidence heard in the pre-inquest review, including claims that Mr Williams's death may have been a cover-up by secret services.

She said none of the evidence would be heard behind closed doors despite the "highly controversial" nature of the death, and a screen will protect some of Mr Williams's spy colleagues from being identified to the court.

Scotland Yard has drawn a blank in its attempts to find out how the spy died. A battery of post-mortem tests failed to determine how he died and police originally found it would have been impossible for him to have locked himself inside the bag.

Family lawyer Anthony O'Toole has said the inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court must establish why there was no evidence of another person in his London apartment.