Lord Leveson, the judge responsible for overseeing the conduct of Britain’s intelligence services, has spent a long career looking into some of the most sensitive, secretive and difficult corners of public life. But even he has been shaken by what he found in the case of the man known as agent X. In his annual report, he said plainly that MI5 lying to multiple courts while defending a violent neo-Nazi informant is “as serious as anything” he has ever dealt with as commissioner. Those words carry enormous weight. They come from someone who knows that intelligence agencies must operate in secret, but who also knows that secrecy must never become a shield for dishonesty. “Oversight depends on candour,” he said. “Failings of candour undermine the entire basis of oversight and accountability.” This was not a small administrative mistake or a misunderstanding between departments. It was a deliberate pattern of deception that reached the highest courts in the land. The Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, known as IPCO, investigated how MI5 gave false evidence to three courts about this informant. The prime minister had personally directed that investigation. When the report was finally released earlier this year, it found that a senior MI5 officer had lied repeatedly, that another officer had misled colleagues and then lied about what he had been told, and that there were “serious and systemic failures in MI5’s conduct” throughout the case. Those are damning conclusions for an agency whose entire credibility depends on being trusted to tell the truth, not just in public, but especially in secret courts where citizens cannot defend themselves fully.
To understand why this matters so deeply, you need to understand who agent X was and what he did. He was a violent neo-Nazi who was also a police informant for MI5. He was involved in extreme right-wing activity, but the agency continued to use him. The human heart of this story, though, is his partner, known by the alias Beth. Their relationship was not a partnership in any real sense. He controlled her coercively, dominating her life and her choices until she lived in fear. At one point he attacked her with a machete. That is not the kind of behaviour that should ever be excused or overlooked. Yet when the police began investigating him for these offences, MI5 did not cut him loose. Instead, the agency helped him go abroad so he could continue intelligence work while he was under police investigation. Think about what that means for Beth. She was the victim of a violent attack, and the very state that is supposed to protect her was quietly helping her abuser avoid justice, all in the name of national security. She would later have to fight not just against her abuser, but against the entire machinery of the British state. She sought answers. She wanted the truth to come out. But the intelligence services, with the backing of the government, tried to keep that truth buried. The BBC began investigating X, and the government took the BBC to court in 2022 in a failed attempt to block its investigation. The government did win legal anonymity for X, which meant he could not be named publicly. For Beth, that anonymity was another form of silencing: the man who had terrorised her would remain faceless, while she was forced to challenge a system that seemed determined to protect him.
The legal battle that followed was deeply unequal. Beth sued MI5 at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a specialist court that deals with complaints against intelligence agencies. In 2024, she sought a review of a ruling at the High Court. Throughout these proceedings, MI5 claimed that it had maintained its core secrecy policy, known as “neither confirm nor deny” or NCND. This policy is supposed to allow the intelligence agencies to avoid confirming or denying anything that might reveal sensitive operations. It is a powerful tool, but it is only acceptable if it is used honestly. MI5 told the courts that it had never disclosed X’s agent status, and on the strength of those assurances, the courts allowed the agency to keep information secret from Beth and from everyone else. That left her at a serious disadvantage. She was fighting for her legal rights while MI5 was hiding behind a claim that turned out to be false. The truth eventually emerged: MI5 had in fact disclosed X’s agent status in phone calls to the BBC as it tried to persuade the broadcaster not to investigate him in 2020. Those calls were made by a senior MI5 officer who wanted to protect X, falsely claiming that X was not an abusive misogynist and not a real extremist. That same officer even wanted the BBC to meet X in person. In doing so, he repeatedly departed from the NCND policy. So the official position that MI5 presented to the courts was simply not true. Three different courts were misled, and the entire basis of oversight was undermined.
IPCO’s investigation into all of this was thorough and unsparing. It found that one senior officer lied repeatedly, not just to outsiders but in the context of official oversight. Another senior officer misled his own colleagues and then lied about what he had been told. The report criticised other senior spies as well, describing the problems as systemic rather than isolated. This was not one rogue individual acting alone. It was a culture in which protecting an informant became more important than protecting the truth. The senior officer who had made those phone calls to the BBC eventually resigned from MI5, but only after the BBC exposed what had happened. In the face of such serious findings, MI5 said it accepted the report “without reservation” last month. That acceptance may sound like a step forward, but it also raises difficult questions. If MI5 accepts that its officers lied to courts, what does that mean for the cases that relied on those lies? What does it mean for Beth, who had to fight a legal system that was being fed false information? And what does it mean for public confidence in the intelligence services? The High Court is now due to decide soon on what action, if any, to take against the agency or its staff. The outcome of that decision will be watched closely, not just by Beth and her supporters, but by everyone who believes that even the most secretive organs of the state must be held to account when they break the law.
Lord Leveson’s comments, made as he published his annual report on Thursday, go to the very heart of democratic governance. He did not simply criticise a specific lie or a specific officer. He spoke about the foundation on which all oversight rests. For any watchdog to work, the people being watched must be honest with the watchdog. If they are not, oversight is just a comforting illusion. “Failings of candour undermine the entire basis of oversight and accountability,” he said. That is not a bureaucratic concern; it is a constitutional one. Citizens give up enormous freedoms in the name of national security. We allow intelligence agencies to intercept communications, to gather information, to keep secrets, and to operate outside the normal rules of public scrutiny. We do that because we believe they are using those powers responsibly and in our interests. But that belief is only sustainable if the agencies are willing to tell the truth, especially when the truth is uncomfortable. When they lie to courts, they are not just manipulating legal procedures. They are breaking the fundamental promise that keeps their power legitimate. The case of agent X is especially troubling because it involved a man who was not just a spy but a violent abuser. MI5 was willing to protect him at the expense of his victim, and then to defend that protection with false evidence. That is a corruption of the very idea of security. Security is supposed to keep people safe, but in this case it was used to keep a dangerous man safe from the consequences of his violence.
At its heart, this is a story about power, vulnerability and the corrosive nature of secrecy without honesty. For Beth, the legal process must have felt like being trapped in a hall of mirrors. Every time she tried to get closer to the truth, the state shifted the ground beneath her. She was up against an institution with almost limitless resources, with access to secret information, and with a willingness to mislead the courts. Her only advantage was that some people were willing to keep asking questions. The BBC investigation persisted. Lord Leveson and his team pursued the evidence. Ultimately, the truth broke through, but only after years of struggle. That should worry all of us. If the intelligence services can lie to courts and get away with it until they are publicly exposed, how many other lies remain undiscovered? How many other victims of informants are waiting in the shadows? How many other official assurances have been made in bad faith? The case of agent X is not just a stain on MI5’s record. It is a warning about what happens when institutions that are meant to protect democracy begin to see themselves as above it. Lord Leveson said this is as serious as anything he has dealt with, and he is right. The response to that seriousness must be more than apology and acceptance. It must be real accountability, meaningful reform, and a renewed commitment to candour. For Beth, that may be the only justice available after everything she has endured. For the rest of us, it is the only way to ensure that the trust we place in our intelligence services is not continually betrayed in the dark.