MI5 agent used status to terrorise lover with a machete
‘Made her watch murder videos’
HORRIFYING footage of an MI5 agent terrorising his girlfriend with a machete was broadcast last night.
Ranting that he will kill her, the spy is seen swinging the weapon above his head and attacking the woman with his fists.
The video cuts out amid her screams, but the woman told the BBC he returned with a knife and tried to cut her throat.
The corporation said the man was an MI5 informant who boasted he was ‘above the law’ because he worked for the security services. The BBC investigation found a second alleged victim who said she believed he could kill a woman if he was not exposed.
The corporation broadcast the footage after a High Court battle with the Government – which fought to keep the informant’s identity secret.
In an echo of the 1980s Spycatcher affair, the Government was granted an injunction after arguing that exposing the man could damage national security and put his life in danger.
The BBC argued women were at risk from the agent – known only as X – who was a misogynist and extremist obsessed with violence and cruelty. It said X should be named so women could be warned.
The secrecy row comes at a time of growing public concern over violence toward women and misogyny within the police and other security organisations in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder by Scotland Yard officer Wayne Couzens.
While the BBC is barred from identifying the man, it was given consent to report on allegations that he abused his status to attack women in its programme, The Abuser Working for MI5, which is now on iPlayer.
It said X was a foreign national paid by MI5 as an agent or ‘covert human intelligence source’ to infiltrate far-Right groups. But he was allegedly an extremist himself, who had praised white supremacist mass murderers and stated his intent to commit similar acts.
He met Beth, a British woman, on a dating site and she became his girlfriend. Beth – not her real name – told the BBC he appeared charming but over time had sexually assaulted her, and was abusive and coercive. She says he used his position with the British security services to terrorise her.
‘He had complete control. I was a shadow of who I am now,’ she told the programme. He collected weapons and made her watch terrorist videos of executions and murders, she said. Controversial powers authorise MI5 agents to commit crimes as part of their cover – but only to access life-saving intelligence, disrupt more serious crime, or ensure an agent’s safety.
However this should not cover actions in their private lives.
After the machete attack in her home, police were called and X was arrested, charged with assault and appeared in court.
However the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case due to lack of evidence. X moved abroad and began working for a foreign intelligence agency. A government spokesman said: ‘As a matter of long-standing policy we will not comment on security or intelligence.’
The case is thought to be the first of its kind since the Spycatcher affair, when the Thatcher government banned publication of Peter Wright’s MI5 memoirs.