Last month charges were dropped against former Tory party parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, and teacher Christopher Berry for allegedly passing on intelligence to the Chinese. Both men have denied the charges.
On Tuesday, the , claimed that there was sufficient grounds to charge the pair in 2024, but claimed that a precedent setting case in the interim involving Bulgarian nationals spying on behalf of Russia found that the country in question must have represented “a threat to the national security of the UK” at the time of the offence.
Parkinson said per the BBC that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) sought to obtain testimony from Sir Kier Starmer’s government to confirm that the communist country did indeed represent a threat to Britain. However, the prime minister said that this could not be done because the official position of the previous Conservative government did not publicly classify China as a national security threat.
“Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security,” Parkinson said.
