MI5 has admitted giving evidence based on lies to three courts while defending a violent neo-Nazi informant — and that senior officers were repeatedly dishonest in the process.
It is the first time the security service has accepted that false statements were made to judges in the case, which centres on a man known only as X whose abuse was exposed by a BBC investigation.
The admission was made by Timothy Otty KC, acting for MI5, during a hearing at the High Court in London on Friday, 18 September. Mr Otty said MI5 accepted “without reservation” the findings of an independent investigation which found evidence had been based on lies.
The BBC’s investigation, published in February 2025, reported that X — described as a misogynistic neo-Nazi — had attacked a former partner with a machete while working as a covert human intelligence source, or CHIS, for MI5. The security service vehemently denied the findings at the time.
What the courts were told
MI5 had told the courts it had maintained its long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying whether X was an intelligence source. That position was set out in a witness statement during injunction proceedings in 2022, when MI5 sought to stop the BBC identifying X, and was repeated before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
The injunction prevented the corporation from naming X, though the BBC was still able to broadcast its documentary.
But the BBC later told MI5 it had recorded a conversation in 2020 with an MI5 officer, known as Officer 2, in which he confirmed X was a CHIS. A subsequent investigation, led by Sir John Goldring, concluded the evidence given to the courts had been based on falsehoods.
Judges weigh contempt proceedings
A panel of three of the most senior judges in England and Wales — Baroness Sue Carr, the Lady Chief Justice, Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the King’s Bench Division, and Mr Justice Chamberlain — is now considering whether to open contempt of court proceedings against individual MI5 officers or the organisation itself. Such a step would be unprecedented.
The High Court in London has previously quashed council planning decisions after legal challenges brought by local residents.
Reporting based on: BBC News, 18 September 2026; LBC; PA Media reports.
