A parliamentary researcher who was arrested last year on suspicion of spying for China has been charged along with another man with espionage offences.
Christopher Cash, 29, who had access to parliament through his work for an organisation set up by Conservative MPs, is to appear in court on Friday after he and Christopher Berry, 32, were charged under the Official Secrets Act.
The men are accused of providing prejudicial information to a foreign state, China, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement on Monday.
Police arrested the two men on 13 March 2023 at addresses in Oxfordshire and Edinburgh as part of an investigation. They were subsequently released on bail and will appear at Westminster magistrates court on Friday.
Cash, of Whitechapel, east London, is accused of obtaining, collecting, recording, publishing or communicating notes, documents or information “calculated to be, might be, or were intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy” between 20 January 2022 and 3 February 2023.
Berry, of Witney in Oxfordshire, is charged with engaging in the same offence – under section 1(1)(c) of the Official Secrets Act 1911 – between 28 December 2021 and 3 February 2023.
The foreign state to which the above charges relate is China, the Metropolitan police said in a statement.
Commander Dominic Murphy, the head of the counter-terrorism command, said: “This has been an extremely complex investigation into what are very serious allegations. We’ve worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service as our investigation has progressed and this has led to the two men being charged today.
“We’re aware there has been a degree of public and media interest in this case, but we would ask others to refrain from any further comment or speculation, so that the criminal justice process can now run its course,” he added.
China’s embassy in the UK has dismissed the charges as “self-staged political farce”.
An embassy spokesperson said: “The Chinese embassy made [a] relevant response on 10 September 2023.
“I would like to reaffirm that the claim that China is suspected of ‘stealing British intelligence’ is completely fabricated and nothing but malicious slander.
“We firmly oppose it and urge the UK side to stop anti-China political manipulation and stop putting on such self-staged political farce.”
Cash had been working for the China Research Group, an organisation co-founded by Tom Tugendhat, now the security minister. He reportedly worked for the British Council in the Chinese city of Hangzhou for two years, and has a master’s degree from the Lau China Institute, a centre for the study of China, at King’s College London.
The China Research Group was set up by MPs with the stated aim of “promoting fresh thinking about how Britain should respond to the rise of China”.
Nick Price, the head of the CPS special crime and counter-terrorism division, said it had “authorised the Metropolitan police to charge two men with espionage offences”.
