MI5 forced to apologise for sickening abuse

Britain’s MI5 must pay compensation to a woman coercively controlled, abused, and attacked with a machete by a neo-Nazi agent it employed. The agent also had fantasies about eating children. And the victim has warned that MI5 – which was found to have lied repeatedly – was still protecting the abuser.

In a story that gets worse with each sentence the sentence, the BBC reported:

Her legal claim followed a BBC investigation four years ago, which showed that the man, known publicly as Agent X, was a neo-Nazi misogynist who used his security service role as a tool of abuse.

The BBC found he used his status to abuse his partner, known by the alias Beth, before he moved abroad, while under police investigation, to continue intelligence work.

They added:

After subsequently failing in court to discredit Beth, MI5 recently offered to pay compensation to settle her claim. She has now accepted the offer.

Beth’s solicitor Kate Ellis – who also works for the Centre for Women’s Justice – said:

To have this kind of outcome and to win actually against a body like MI5 who are so shrouded in secrecy and in a sense so powerful, is a huge achievement for Beth.

MI5, which was found to have lied repeatedly, had also been forced to own up.

MI5 forced to apologise

The head of MI5 has also been forced to apologise:

We relied on incorrect evidence and our record keeping fell well short of the standard of professionalism that we expect, and to which Beth was entitled. We profoundly regret that our mistakes prolonged the litigation and caused additional suffering for Beth.

MI5 has settled Beth’s claim and we have apologised to Beth directly.

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Prompted in part by Beth’s case, MI5 has embarked on a programme of work to reinforce the highest standards of record keeping and information management.

The MI5 chief was accused of trying to get the head of the BBC, Tim Davie, to quash the story in 2021:

In 2021, Sir Ken wrongly claimed the planned story was “inaccurate” when he personally contacted his BBC counterpart Tim Davie in a failed effort to undermine the reporting.

Fantasised about eating children

Details about the man accused are frankly mind boggling:

Evidence showed the MI5 spy, a foreign national, was a right-wing extremist with a violent past. He also engaged in fantasies about eating children.

He had abused a previous partner abroad, before taking on his MI5 role, including threatening to kill her and her child.

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Beth met the agent on a dating site. He soon became controlling and physically and sexually abusive:

One video showed Agent X threatening to kill her and attacking her with a machete.

The BBC reported:

MI5 is currently under investigation after the BBC revealed that the security service gave false evidence to three courts while defending its handling of the agent.

In a statement, Beth said the compensation:

can never do anything to repair what I went through at the hands of X.

I’d pay that money so as not to have to experience even a minute of what I had to experience of the worst of his abuse.

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She warned that

despite this apology, the MI5 are still protecting this violent misogynistic predator.

The British state has again been caught not only protecting abusers, but lying in order to derail investigations and protect their man. This is nothing new. The Canary has reported extensively on abuse by state agents. Victims like Beth deserve justice – and proverbial heads need to roll over this and many other cases of this nature.

Featured image via the Canary