England’s former director of public prosecutions has said that witness statements drafted for the prosecution of two men over allegations they spied for China were “more than adequate” to use at trial.
Lord Ken Macdonald KC told the Financial Times on Thursday that the statements from deputy national security adviser Matt Collins, in which China is called a threat to the UK’s economic interests, went far enough to be put before a jury.
“It is an axiomatic principle of law that economic security is an intrinsic aspect of national security and so there’s no doubt at all that Collins’ statements set out in the clearest terms that China represents a threat to our national security,” said Macdonald, who was head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2003 to 2008.
He added: “The fact that China was prepared to recruit spies shows it’s a threat to national security. These statements were more than adequate to proceed with a prosecution in my view.”
The witness statements released on Wednesday by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer from the collapsed prosecution have raised new questions about why the case could not proceed to trial.
The CPS has maintained over the past month that it was left with a hole in its case from the three statements, provided by Collins across nearly two years.
The CPS claims that it met the evidential threshold to bring charges against the two men in April 2024, but insists it was no longer the case as of September this year, forcing it to drop the charges.
Christopher Cash, who was a parliamentary researcher and director of the hawkish China Research Group, and Christopher Berry, who worked as a researcher in China, have both denied wrongdoing and were formally acquitted.
The first witness statement
Collins provided a 12-page statement dated December 2023, four months before Cash and Berry were charged. This document underpinned the CPS decision to prosecute the two men.
The statement touches on the information that was allegedly passed from Cash to Berry and then on to an individual named “Alex”, whom the CPS said fed it to a senior member of the Chinese Communist party.
The prosecution of the men was based on evidence the CPS claimed showed that Berry had been recruited by the Chinese state as an agent and used Cash as a “sub-source” because of his access to parliamentarians in his role at the CRG.
The statement claims that in July 2022 Berry met a senior CCP leader, who the second statement indicates was Cai Qi, now China’s fifth-ranking official. When Berry allegedly told Cash about the meeting, Cash said “you’re in spy territory now”.
Cash said on Wednesday: “I wish to reiterate that I am completely innocent. Not just because the case against me was dropped, but because at no point did I ever intentionally assist Chinese intelligence”.
A lawyer for Berry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Berry has previously said he has never “had access to or dealings with any classified information, nor has he ever expressed or harboured . . . any pro-Chinese political sympathies”.
The main purpose of the Collins statement was to set out the deputy national security adviser’s view on whether the information alleged to have been provided to Chinese intelligence by Berry from Cash was “prejudicial” to the UK.
“This statement sets out my assessment of whether providing information of the type that was alleged to have been provided by one of the suspects to “Alex” was prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state.”
This is a central test in the law the men were accused of violating, the Official Secrets Act 1911 (OSA). The statement makes no explicit reference to another important test in the law, whether the information was given to an “enemy”. But Collins does describe Britain’s view of China.
“The Chinese Intelligence Services are highly capable and conduct large scale espionage operations against the UK and other international partners to advance the Chinese state’s interests and harm the interests and security of the UK.”
The “enemy” question has been cited by Stephen Parkinson, director of public prosecutions and head of the CPS, as the critical problem that later proved fatal to meeting the evidential threshold.
A Court of Appeal judgment in July 2024 from another espionage case — a couple of months after Cash and Berry were charged — explained that “enemy” can mean any country that poses a national security threat to the UK.
In that other case, which involved Russia, the defence had unsuccessfully argued that the “enemy” test was not met because there was no war, or prospect of war, between the UK and Russia.
Parkinson has said that the ruling required the CPS to obtain further evidence. However, lawyers have questioned this, highlighting that the ruling did not change the law but merely explained it and, if anything, demonstrated how broad the interpretation could be.
The second witness statement
Collins’ second statement comes months later and after a change of government. Now Labour are in office, not the Conservatives. (It is dated February 2024, but the government has said it was in fact February 2025.)
The three-page witness statement begins with a caveat not seen in the previous document.
“There are limits to what I am able to say in a public forum owing to the need to protect sensitive information and, ultimately, the UK’s national security. I have, nevertheless, sought to provide as much detail as I am able.”
Collins then goes on to describe China as a “threat” but focused on the fact that this was related to “economic security”. He did not use the terms “enemy” or “national security” in relation to any threat posed by China.
“China is an authoritarian state, with different values to the UK. This presents challenges for both the UK and our allies. China and the UK both benefit from bilateral trade and investment, but China also presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.”
The deputy national security adviser, a civil servant, then makes an apparent reference to the rapprochement with China that Starmer had sought since taking office.
“It is important for me to emphasise, however, that the Government is committed to pursuing a positive economic relationship with China. The Government believes that the UK must continue to engage with international partners on trade and investment to grow our economy, while ensuring that our security and values are not compromised.”
His first statement, under the Tories, had said only that the UK wanted “open, constructive and predictable relations” with Beijing.
The Court of Appeal judgment in the other espionage case states that “friendly powers would fall outside” the definition of “enemy” in the OSA.
Calum Miller, a Liberal Democrat MP and the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, said after the publication of the witness statements: “Did emphasising the government’s desire for a positive relationship with China effectively cause this trial to collapse?”
The government has insisted that Collins “was given full freedom to provide evidence without interference”, and Starmer has repeatedly claimed that the evidence could only say what the previous Conservative government’s attitude to China had been.
The third witness statement
Collins provided a third and final three-page witness statement, dated August 2025. The trial was due to begin in October.
He repeated the disclaimer he had given in the second witness statement about the limitations he faced in relation to providing sensitive information on the UK’s national security.
Collins then goes on to describe the previous Conservative government’s positions on China, during the time of the alleged offences.
“Between 2021 and 2023, the UK Government publicly articulated a number of concerns about the long-term strategic challenge that China poses to the UK under the Chinese authorities, including the increasing Chinese espionage threat posed to the UK.”
He also gave examples of the “malicious cyber activity” China has used to target the UK, saying that Chinese espionage operations “threaten the UK’s economic prosperity and resilience, and the integrity of our democratic institutions”.
“As I said in my first statement, the Chinese Intelligence Services are highly capable and conduct large scale espionage operations against the UK to advance the Chinese state’s interests and harm the interests and security of the UK. China’s espionage operations threaten the UK’s economic prosperity and resilience, and the integrity of our democratic institutions.”
Collins once again does not specifically use the words “national security” or “enemy” in that context, and then reiterates that the government wants a “positive relationship with China”.
“It is important for me to emphasise, however, that the UK Government is committed to pursuing a positive relationship with China to strengthen understanding, co-operation and stability. The Government’s position is that we will co-operate where we can; compete where we need to; and challenge where we must, including on issues of national security.”
The formulation of “co-operate . . . compete . . . and challenge” appears in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, and was subsequently used by ministers in government after Starmer took office.
MPs and lawyers have questioned the idea that the Collins statements did not go far enough to allow the CPS to proceed with the prosecution.
Emily Thornberry, chair of the foreign affairs committee, said on Thursday that it appeared the CPS had taken the “nuclear option”.
“Given that all the deputy national security adviser’s witness statements referred to China as a threat, I cannot understand why the CPS took the nuclear option of collapsing this case rather than leaving it to a jury,” she said.
Additional reporting by David Sheppard