LBC : MI6 Spy Found Tied To Bed Years Before Death

MI6 Spy Found Tied To Bed Years Before Death

April 25, 2012

MI6 spy Gareth Williams tied himself to his bed "to see if he could get free" years before his body was found in a padlocked bag, his inquest heard.

Mr Williams was working for GCHQ in Cheltenham when his landlord and landlady in the town discovered him with his wrists attached to the head board.

They concluded the act was "more likely to be sexual than escapology," the hearing was told.

In a written statement read to Westminster Coroner's Court, his landlady Jennifer Elliot described the startling scene that confronted her and her husband in the middle of the night three years before their tenant's death.

Ms Elliot, who rented out an annex to her home to Mr Williams, said: "We were in bed and we heard Gareth shouting for help. It was about 1.30am and during winter.

"We both got up, got the spare key and opened the door to the annex. I called 'are you ok?' Gareth replied 'can you help me?'

"We went upstairs and found him lying in his bed with both hands tied with material attached at the headboard."

The spy was dressed in boxer shorts, with the bedclothes pulled over his legs, she said.

"He was very embarrassed," she said.

"He said 'I just wanted to see if I could get myself free'."

Ms Elliot could not describe what material he had used to tie up his wrists, adding that her husband thought he had formed two loops and put his hands through them.

The couple thought the material looked taut enough to cut into the spy's skin, the court heard.

Ms Elliot's statement continued: "My husband said 'what the bloody hell are you doing?' and he said 'I just wanted to see if I could get free'.

"He told my husband there was a knife on the side and my husband cut him free.

"We said 'Gareth, we can't have you doing this'. He agreed and said it wouldn't happen again."

Mr Williams then offered to pay more rent but Ms Elliot declined, the inquest heard.

There was no repeat of the strange incident, Ms Elliot said, and she and her husband never spoke of it to anyone but each other.

"We obviously discussed it and thought it more likely to be sexual than escapology," she added.

But apart from this, Mr Williams's flat was always immaculate and his landlady "never saw anything of a sexual or fetish nature" there, the inquest was told.

Mr Williams's body was found locked in a hold-all in his flat in Pimlico, London, in August 2010 but 20 months on his death still remains a mystery.

MI6 spies are expected to give evidence at the inquest of GCHQ codebreaker Mr Williams later.

The witnesses will appear anonymously behind a screen and will be referred to only as Witness K, Witness F, Witness G and SIS F.

Between them the witnesses will be asked to explain Mr Williams' role, both at his main job at GCHQ, and on his secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) at Vauxhall Cross in London.

Sky : MI6 Spy Found Tied To Bed Years Before Death

MI6 Spy Found Tied To Bed Years Before Death

April 25, 2012

MI6 spy Gareth Williams tied himself to his bed "to see if he could get free" years before his body was found in a padlocked bag, his inquest heard.

Mr Williams was working for GCHQ in Cheltenham when his landlord and landlady in the town discovered him with his wrists attached to the head board.

They concluded the act was "more likely to be sexual than escapology," the hearing was told.

In a written statement read to Westminster Coroner's Court, his landlady Jennifer Elliot described the startling scene that confronted her and her husband in the middle of the night three years before their tenant's death.

Ms Elliot, who rented out an annex to her home to Mr Williams, said: "We were in bed and we heard Gareth shouting for help. It was about 1.30am and during winter.

"We both got up, got the spare key and opened the door to the annex. I called 'are you ok?' Gareth replied 'can you help me?'

"We went upstairs and found him lying in his bed with both hands tied with material attached at the headboard."

The spy was dressed in boxer shorts, with the bedclothes pulled over his legs, she said.

"He was very embarrassed," she said.

"He said 'I just wanted to see if I could get myself free'."

Ms Elliot could not describe what material he had used to tie up his wrists, adding that her husband thought he had formed two loops and put his hands through them.

The couple thought the material looked taut enough to cut into the spy's skin, the court heard.

Ms Elliot's statement continued: "My husband said 'what the bloody hell are you doing?' and he said 'I just wanted to see if I could get free'.

"He told my husband there was a knife on the side and my husband cut him free.

"We said 'Gareth, we can't have you doing this'. He agreed and said it wouldn't happen again."

Mr Williams then offered to pay more rent but Ms Elliot declined, the inquest heard.

There was no repeat of the strange incident, Ms Elliot said, and she and her husband never spoke of it to anyone but each other.

"We obviously discussed it and thought it more likely to be sexual than escapology," she added.

But apart from this, Mr Williams's flat was always immaculate and his landlady "never saw anything of a sexual or fetish nature" there, the inquest was told.

Mr Williams's body was found locked in a hold-all in his flat in Pimlico, London, in August 2010 but 20 months on his death still remains a mystery.

MI6 spies are expected to give evidence at the inquest of GCHQ codebreaker Mr Williams later.

The witnesses will appear anonymously behind a screen and will be referred to only as Witness K, Witness F, Witness G and SIS F.

Between them the witnesses will be asked to explain Mr Williams' role, both at his main job at GCHQ, and on his secondment to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) at Vauxhall Cross in London.

(c) Sky News 2012

This Is London : Secret agents will give evidence behind screen at inquest of spy-in-the-bag Gareth Williams

Secret agents will give evidence behind screen at inquest of spy-in-the-bag Gareth Williams

‘No evidence will be taken in closed hearing... all will be presented before this court’ - Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox

Paul Cheston | April 23, 2012

Four secret service witnesses will give evidence anonymously from behind a screen at the inquest into the death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, the coroner said today.

Mr Williams, 31, was found padlocked inside a sports bag in the bath at his home in Pimlico in August 2010.

His parents have suggested that the “dark arts” of intelligence agencies could have been involved in the death and a possible cover up.

The inquest into his death, described by coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox as “highly controversial”, opened today. She emphasised that all evidence to the inquest in Westminster will be heard in open court.

But she granted public interest immunity certificates to confer anonymity on three MI6 witnesses known as K, F and G, and on a “corporate witness” known as SIS F.

The first three will give evidence from behind a screen protecting their identity from the court, including from Mr Williams’s family. The corporate witness, however, will be visible to the family.

A further witness, Stephen Gale of GCHQ, will give evidence without a screen or anonymity.

Dr Wilcox said she was taking these steps because of the risk “to national security and therefore the public interest”.

Mr Williams’s parents Ian and Ellen and his sister, Ceri Subbe, were at the hearing today. The inquest, which is expected to last five days, is not being heard by a jury and the coroner alone will record a verdict.

Mr Williams, a maths prodigy worked as a cipher and codes expert for the government listening station GCHQ and had been on secondment with MI6. His naked and decomposing body was found inside a large holdall sealed by a padlock in the bath at his top-floor flat. A series of post-mortem tests failed to discover exactly how he died.

Dr Wilcox told the inquest: “Unlike other courts no one is on trial, least of all the deceased. This inquest, like all others, is an inquiry to answer four important but limited factual questions: who was the person who died, and how, when and where did the death come about? “The question ‘How’ will lead to an examination of a direct sequence of events that led to the cause of death.

“I intend to conduct this inquest as a full, fair and fearless inquiry into the evidence of this highly controversial death. No evidence will be taken in closed hearing and all evidence I deem relevant and all the material I have seen will be presented before this court.”

Family lawyer Anthony O’Toole told an earlier hearing at Westminster coroner’s court that “the impression of the family” was that “an unknown third party [in the flat at the time] was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in those dark arts”.

The hearing continues.

---

Six key questions

Was there someone else in the room with Gareth Williams?

Police say it would have been impossible to get into the locked bag alone. Mr Williams’s body had no signs of defence injuries from a struggle.

Why did it take so long to raise the alarm?

Mr Williams was last seen on August 15, 2010 and police believe he died in the early hours of the following day. But he was not reported missing by anyone until his sister rang police seven days later.

Were the black arts of the spooks involved?

Mr Williams’s family suspect members of an intelligence service were involved in what they see as a possible murder and cover-up.

Was Mr Williams being followed?

His friend Elizabeth Guthrie is said to have told police he had told her he feared he was under surveillance. But he did not reveal by whom.

Was Mr Williams’s work behind his death?

He had just returned from holiday in the United States but neither MI6 nor GCHQ have wanted to make public what the codebreaker was involved in at the time of his death.

Did a sex game go wrong?

Mr Williams had visited a number of bondage websites. There was no trace of alcohol or recreational drugs in his body. But if he was interested in auto-eroticism why was it not picked up when he was vetted?

Telegraph : MI6 spy inquest will hear anonymous evidence from security agents

MI6 spy inquest will hear anonymous evidence from security agents

Security agents giving evidence at the inquest of MI6 spy Gareth Williams, who was found dead inside a padlocked bag, can do so anonymously and from behind screens, the Coroner ruled today.

By Martin Evans and Tom Whitehead, Crime Correspondent and Security Editor | April 23, 2012

At the opening of the hearing into what she described as Mr Williams’ “highly controversial death”, Dr Fiona Wilcox said there would be no secrecy at the inquest.

But she said there would be a “real risk of harm to national security” if witnesses from the security services were required to give evidence without the protection of anonymity.

Four witnesses, identified only as K, F, G and SIS F will all give evidence from behind a screen.

Mr Williams’ sister Ceri Subbe will also give evidence at the inquest about her brother’s upbringing, character and background.

His parents Ian and Ellen were present at the hearing, which is taking place at Westminster Coroner’s Court in central London.

The inquest will attempt to establish the cause and circumstances of Mr Williams’ mysterious death in August 2010.

His naked and decomposing remains were discovered in a holdall which had been locked from the outside and placed in the bath at his Pimlico flat.

Almost 40 witnesses will give evidence during the hearing, which is expected to last five days.

Mr Williams was a mathematics prodigy who graduated from Bangor University at the age of 17 before going on to complete a PhD and post-graduate studies at Manchester and Cambridge Universities.

A keen cyclist, he joined GCHQ – the government’s listening station - in 2001, where he was employed as a cipher and code breaker. In 2009 he was seconded to MI6, the secret intelligence service, where he qualified for “operational deployment” in the field.

Shortly before his death he returned from a fly drive holiday on the west coast of the United States and the last confirmed sighting of his was on August 15 2010 when a CCTV camera captured him shopping at the Harrods department store.

However despite failing to turn up for work, it was not until more than a week later on August 23 when he was reported missing by the human resources department at GCHQ.

Officers from Scotland Yard attended his top floor flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico, where they discovered his badly decomposed body in the holdall.

Mr Williams’ family believe he may have been murdered because of his work for the security services.

At a pre-inquest review, held last month, Mr O’Toole said: “The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services, or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in those dark arts.”

Telegraph : MI6 spy Gareth Williams death: agent could 'not have locked himself in bag'

MI6 spy Gareth Williams death: agent could 'not have locked himself in bag'

An MI6 spy, Gareth Williams, whose body was found in a holdall, could not have locked himself in the sports bag, a coroner was told.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter | March 30, 2012

The naked and decomposing body of the 31-year-old GCHQ codebreaker was found in a bag in the bath of his Pimlico flat on August 23, 2010.

Nearly 18 months on, police have been unable to establish what led to his death despite toxicology tests and an exhaustive investigation into his background that has been hampered by errors.

On Friday, at a pre-inquest review, Westminster Coroner’s Court was told that his family believe Mr Williams was murdered by a member of "some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services".

Concerns were also raised about how Mr Williams' MI6 employers failed to raise the alarm when he failed to arrive for work.

The court heard the delays in finding his body resulted in the post mortem being "ineffective".

But in another key blunder, DNA found on the spy's hand, thought to be crucial to the case, turned out to be from a forensic scientist who took evidence at the scene.

Human error in the way DNA results were then fed into a computer led to false leads being pursued needlessly until this year.

Forensic lab LGC is to blame for the blunder, the hearing heard. The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said it throws into doubt the reliability of their work on this case, as well as others.

She expressed frustration over delays, describing them as "an ongoing problem", as she called for inquiries into the DNA "error".

Dr Wilcox told the hearing that whether Mr Williams was alive inside the bag and locked it himself "was at the very heart of this inquiry".

Anthony O'Toole, representing the family, told the inquest that there was a "high probability" that a third party was in the flat.

"The unknown third party was a member of some agency that specialised in the dark arts of the secret services and perhaps evidence was removed from the scene post mortem by an expert in those dark arts," he said.

He said the family had no view on whether it was a foreign agency or a British agency that was behind either the murder or the cover-up. The family still do not know what Mr Williams did for a living.

Mr O’Toole said that the family had hoped that forensic evidence might help to convict the killer if the police found a suspect.

But following the discovery that DNA found on his hand belonged to a police worker, there was now no forensic evidence which could identify the killer.

He said that Mr Williams had attended two “operational development courses” in the months before his death.

“With effect from March 18, 2010, he could be operationally deployed,” he said.

“In our submission, to properly explore the circumstances of the death, we do need to know something of the deceased’s work.

“SIS (MI6) say the risk to the deceased was assessed to be low, but we don’t know why … we got a bland statement from SIS that the death is nothing to do with his work.”

The coroner assured Mr O’Toole: “I absolutely intend to follow the evidence in this case."

The hearing was told that experts who worked on the case agreed that the code breaker could not have locked the bag himself from the inside.

They could be asked to re-enact how he could have got into the bag by giving a live demonstration in court.

Dr Wilcox told the court there was a lack of pathological evidence to prove Mr Williams made a "frantic attempt" to get out of the bag.

Meanwhile, a "Mediterranean couple" who were reportedly seen visiting the flat have been ruled a red herring by police.

Agents from both MI6 and GCHQ, where Mr Williams had been seconded from, are due to be called to give evidence when the inquest opens next month.

Applications were being made by GCHQ lawyers for agents to be allowed to give evidence anonymously and behind a screen.

Further "corporate statements" from both organisations are set to be tendered, which lawyers for MI6 told the court would "paint a picture and set the scene".

Evidence will also be given about the contents of Mr Williams' locker at GCHQ in Cheltenham, Glos, which the hearing was told several people had access to.

The inquest is unlikely to be shown video of material found on Mr Williams' iPhone that was recovered from his work locker.

The inquest is due to start on April 23 and last five days, with 30 witnesses set to be called to give evidence.

Witnesses will include Mr Williams' sister and the police officers who opened the front door and discovered the padlocked bag containing the body.

Organisers of the ladies fashion course Mr Williams is said to have secretly enrolled on will give statements to the inquest.

Three colleagues, known as witnesses K, F and G, will be called to give evidence and will take questions from his family, the court heard.

An officer from Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism command will also attend the inquest to explain its official role following a request from the spy’s family.

Witness K, a colleague at GCHQ, will also give evidence about Mr Williams' "state of mind" on his last trip taken before his death.

Witness F was considering taking over the MI6-owned flat when the spy returned to Gloucestershire.

Meanwhile Witness G, Mr Williams’ line manager, will be asked to explain why the alarm was not raised sooner when Mr Williams failed to arrive for work.

The alarm was raised by a GCHQ HR manager when she rang the Metropolitan Police, who went to his house for a routine "welfare check".

Dr Wilcox told the hearing that he wanted the inquest to go ahead for the sake of Mr Williams’ family.