Britain’s top prosecutor says Starmer Government blocked evidence in collapsed China spy case, sparking constitutional challenge
LONDON — Britain’s Director of Public Prosecutions has issued an extraordinary letter contradicting Downing Street’s explanation for the collapse of the country’s flagship China spy case, confirming that the government’s refusal to declare Beijing a threat to national security doomed the prosecution.
The letter shows that despite “many months” of attempts, the Crown Prosecution Service was unable to secure witness statements from ministers or officials confirming that “at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security.” Without that evidence, the prosecution of Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash under the Official Secrets Act 1911 was forced to halt.
The disclosure prompted an immediate and furious response from MPs who were themselves targeted by Beijing’s interference operations, a mode of Chinese espionage already revealed in Canada’s Parliament during the same period in Ottawa’s foreign-interference inquiry.
Neil O’Brien, one of the Conservative China-sceptic MPs sanctioned by Beijing and believed to have been among the figures targeted by China in the aborted prosecution, posted to X:
“Ministers deliberately collapsed the trial of two men who spied on MPs for China. Ministers lied to Parliament and said they did not do this. The CPS says they did. No reason this doesn’t end with the PM resigning.”
O’Brien’s remarks captured the sense of outrage across Westminster at what lawmakers described as a constitutional rupture between prosecutors and the government on a live national-security matter.
The correspondence, dated 7 October 2025, from Stephen Parkinson, Director of Public Prosecutions, confirms earlier reporting from The Telegraph that the CPS had sought government confirmation of China’s status.
In a rare public clash with the government, Parkinson explained that he had chosen to go public because “government briefings have been provided, commenting on the evidential situation” — a thinly veiled rebuke to Downing Street’s damage-control narrative.
“Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months,” Parkinson wrote. “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, and by late August 2025 it was realised that this evidence would not be forthcoming. When this became apparent, the case could not proceed.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in his first direct comments on the mounting scandal, acknowledged on Tuesday night that he had been briefed on the case but appeared to deflect responsibility, suggesting prosecutors and the previous Conservative government bore the blame. Starmer argued that the evidential blockade was set by his predecessors’ failure to name China as an adversarial state — an assertion the CPS letter now flatly undermines.
The letter makes clear that it was the current government’s own refusal to provide the required classification statement that caused the prosecution to collapse.
Starmer’s argument also collapses against the public record. In January 2022, MI5 took the unprecedented step of issuing a formal Interference Alert Notice warning that Christine Lee, a lawyer linked to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, was “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party” and had established “financial and political links with serving and aspiring MPs.” The notice described Lee’s operations as a “significant threat to subverting UK Parliament and political targets.”
The alert serves as intentionally declassified, internationally reported proof that the British state had already recognised—and publicly warned—that the Chinese Communist Party’s activities posed a direct danger to national security, including within Parliament itself—the very democratic institution allegedly targeted in the prosecution now collapsed under the Starmer Government.