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.

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.

Telegraph : Gareth Williams profile: the codebreaker with a secret double life

Gareth Williams profile: the codebreaker with a secret double life

Gareth Williams was the spy with the very secret double life - but not the one you might expect.

Tom Whitehead, Security Editor | May 2, 2012

When at work in one of the most sensitive secretive organisations, Gareth Williams was a maths genius carrying out "world class" work for the intelligence services.

But at home he had a penchant for womens' clothing, dancing naked in leather boots and visiting bondage websites.

Over the course of an eight day inquest in to his bizarre death an extraordinary picture of this seemingly unassuming, quiet man emerged.

A devoted son and brother, the 31-year-old codebreaker appeared to have a bright future ahead of him until his untimely and very strange demise.

But his death opened a door on a completely alternative lifestyle, no doubt to the shock and surprise of loved ones.

On the outside, to work colleagues he appeared a little introvert and not willing to join in the office camaraderie.

Having been seconded to MI6 in London from GCHQ he had asked, and been granted, an early return to Cheltenham because he disliked the city life because, in his sister Ceri Subbe’s words, he was really a “country boy”.

The job wasn’t what he had expected and he hated the “rat race, flash car competitions and post-work drinking culture”.

A keen cyclist and walker, he wanted to return to the freedom of the outdoors.

One colleague even suggested he wanted to the head back to GCHQ because people there were more on his technical level.

He didn’t appear to make, or want, many friends. His landlady in Cheltenham for 10 years said he never had anyone to the flat.

In London, one friend, Elizabeth Guthrie said she had never visited his home but he was happy to sit at hers watching DVDs rather than go out drinking.

Only too aware of the sensitivities of his job, he was a “scrupulous risk-assessor" and as meticulous as a “Swiss clock”.

He appeared to be a super intelligent prodigy who didn’t find it easy, or wanted, to fit in.

But he had another life, one that could not have contrasted more with his public image.

Police arriving at his flat found £20,000 worth of exclusive designer women's clothing and shoes, including Christian Laboutin, Christian Dior and Chloe.

It would have taken a substantial chunk of his annual salary of just under 40k.

Carol Kirton, who worked at upmarket west London fashion store Dover Street Market recalled how he was “different from other male customers”

She described him as “shy” but "on a mission to buy an item" when he came in.

Most of the clothes were untouched and it remains uncertain why he had them.

It may have been a genuine healthy interest as it also emerged he had completed two six week fashion courses St Martin’s College in London.

Perhaps he was planning for a life after spying and his friends insisted he was not gay or a transvestite.

But the deeper the police delved in to his life the stranger it became.

In 2007, his Cheltenham landlady Jennifer Ellliot discovered him tied to his own bedposts wearing only boxer shorts.

He insisted he was attempting some escapology – at 1.30am - but Mrs Elliot and her husband were convinced it was “sexual”.

Evidence of visits to bondage and fetish websites were also found on his phones and lap tops as well as images of high profile drag queens.

Some searches related to models in various forms of a “hogtie” – a bondage position often performed naked.

There was also a link to an article about a woman who was enclosed in plastic before having the air sucked out with a vacuum.

However, police said the searches only occurred during four separate periods over two years and described it as “sporadic research” rather than an active interest.

But they also found a homemade video showing Mr Williams naked except for black leather boots in which he “wiggles and girates” with his back to the camera was on one of his iPhones.

It remains unclear if Mr Williams spymasters knew any of his alternate lifestyle but one unnamed witness appeared to suggest even if they had it would not necessarily have stopped him being employed.

The senior MI6 manager SIS F said vetting processes focused on “trustworthiness, integrity and reliability” and that people can have “lifestyle choices” that are “perfectly legitimate”.

There was no question over Mr Williams’ talent.

Originally from Holyhead, north Wales, he gained a maths O-level aged 10, graduated from Bangor University at 17 before completing a PhD and post-graduate studies at Manchester and Cambridge Universities.

At GCHQ he was described as a prodigy who did “world class” work and at MI6 he was working alongside undercover operatives.

In 2009 he was part of team that won a national award for technical prowess and after his death he was given a posthumous one for significant achievement in crypt analysis

But he left the world in very unceremonious circumstances, naked in a sports bag in a bath and as the mystery over how he came to meet end continues the enigma that was Gareth Williams may never be unravelled.

Telegraph : Profile: Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy who led a secret double life

Profile: Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy who led a secret double life

Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy who was found dead in a bag in his bath, was a child prodigy.

By Victoria Ward and Matthew Holehouse | April 23, 2012

He took a maths GCSE at primary school and A-levels at 13, graduating with a first from Bangor University by the age of 17.

He went on to study advanced mathematics at Cambridge, eventually leaving because he felt he had learned all he could.

Williams grew up in Anglesey, north Wales. He was a quiet child from a tight-knit family, whose great passion was cycling.

Friends said that despite his extraordinary mathematical mind, he was "very naive about people". He was a loner, with few social contacts, even among his work colleagues. He struggled to make friends after being catapulted into the company of older people at an early age.

Dylan Parry, 34, from Anglesey, said he was an isolated child. "He never really made friends, either his own age or from those younger than him,” he said.

“He didn't have any of the normal childhood interests or pursuits of teenagers. His only real interest was maths. He was obsessed with his subject. Socially he was very awkward but very nice."

By the time he left Cambridge, Williams’ potential had already been spotted by GCHQ scouts.

In 2001, he took at job as a code expert at the GCHQ "doughnut" building in Cheltenham, working alongside hundreds of mathematicians, cryptologists and analysts going on to develop techniques to speed up data encryption.

For the first time, it is likely Williams felt challenged and comfortable in his surroundings, working with like-minded people in a top-secret environment that suited his personality.

His sparse bedsit was immaculate and devoid of personal belongings and clutter. His former landlady, Jenny Elliot, 71, said that “his life was his work”.

In 2003, Williams spent six months at Menwith Hill, the RAF station in Yorkshire and in 2006 he spent time at Fort Meade in Maryland, home of the United States’ National Security Agency, GCHQ’s partner in global surveillance.

He is also reported to have made a number of visits to Afghanistan.

Last year, he was seconded to the London headquarters of MI6, a sign of his steady progress up the hierarchy at GCHQ.

The 31-year-old was assigned to live at 36 Alderney Street, in Pimlico, central London, an MI6 safe house.

Williams died before he could take up his next post in the Cyber Security Operations Centre at GCHQ.

Three months after his death, police revealed he had been pursuing a double life. Unknown to his family he had been visiting bondage websites and drag clubs and owned a £15,000 collection of women's designer clothing.

He had also attended two six to eight week courses in fashion design for beginners at Central St Martin's College in London during evenings and weekends.

He is also known to have visited Barcode, a gay bar in Vauxhall. However police have been unable to visit any sexual partners of Mr Williams, either male or female.

His family said before the police announcement that they were "very, very angry" at "completely false" rumours about the nature of Mr Williams' private life.