UK Trial on Alleged Chinese Spies Collapses: What to Know

Why has the collapsed trial become such a thorny issue for the government of Keir Starmer?

Pedestrians walk along the South Bank, with the Elizabeth Tower and the Houses of Parliament in the background, in London on Sept. 29, 2025. Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

Pedestrians walk along the South Bank, with the Elizabeth Tower and the Houses of Parliament in the background, in London on Sept. 29, 2025. Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

When the trial of two men accused of spying for China collapsed before it had even begun in London on Sept. 15, the news came out of the blue.

But in the four weeks since, the case has become a political snowball, with allegations made in the British media that the UK government undermined the prosecution to avoid offending the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is not officially defined as an “enemy.”

The affair has also highlighted the difficulties that successive UK governments have faced in defining China, which is the UK’s third-largest trading partner.

Allegations Emerge

In April 2024, Christopher Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, 33, a teacher, were charged with spying.

It was alleged that the pair had “obtained, collected, recorded ... or communicated” information that might be “useful to an enemy,” and Scotland Yard confirmed at the time the charges related to China.”

What Are the Accusations?

The allegation against Cash and Berry was that, between December 2021 and February 2023, they had “for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, obtained, collected, recorded, published or communicated to any other person articles, notes, documents or information which were calculated to be ... useful to an enemy.”

They were charged under the Official Secrets Act 1911, which was the default legislation used to prosecute spies in the UK until a new law, the National Security Act, came into force in December 2023.

The pair could not be charged under that legislation because it was not in existence at the time of the alleged offenses, and it could not be applied retrospectively.

Cash and Berry both pleaded not guilty and professed their innocence.

How Did the Trial Collapse?

Cash and Berry had been due to go on trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London in October, but on Sept. 15, during a pre-trial hearing at the Central Criminal Court, prosecutor Tom Little KC said, “We simply cannot continue to prosecute.”

He gave no more details, but a judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said she was satisfied and formally recorded not guilty verdicts against the pair.

The government stated that the decision to drop the charges had been made independently by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

What Is the Official Secrets Act?

On the day the trial collapsed, Security Minister Dan Jarvis told Parliament, “It is well known that state threats legislation has not kept pace with the changing threats we face.”

“The Official Secrets Act was passed to counter the threat from German spies before the First World War,” Jarvis said.

He said the National Security Act was “state agnostic, removing the unhelpful ‘enemy’ language from the Official Secrets Act and focusing on the malign activity we are all concerned about.”

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson said there had been an “evidential failure” and that the crux of the issue that led to the trial collapsing appears to be the definition of the word “enemy” in the Official Secrets Act.

Is China an ‘Enemy’?

In order to prosecute Cash and Berry, the CPS had to prove that China was considered an “enemy” by the UK government.

In a letter to the chairs of two parliamentary committees, on Oct. 7, Parkinson said a 2024 judgment in the Ivanova case ruled that the Official Secrets Act applied only to “a country which represents at the time of the offence, a threat to the national security of the UK.”

Katrin Ivanova, 33, was one of six Bulgarians who were convicted, under the Official Secrets Act, of spying for Russia in London and jailed in May.

In the Ivanova ruling, Court of Appeal judges said an enemy did not necessarily mean “a country with which the UK is at war or is likely to be in the foreseeable future.”

“There is no reason in our view why the term ‘an enemy’ should not include a country which represents a current threat to the national security of the UK,” they said.

Russia was considered a threat to Britain’s national security, but the CPS sought to obtain evidence from the government that China was also a threat.

In Parkinson’s letter, he wrote, “Efforts to obtain that evidence were made over many months, but notwithstanding the fact that further witness statements were provided, none of these stated that at the time of the offence China represented a threat to national security, and by late August 2025 it was realised that this evidence would not be forthcoming.”

New Developments

The Sunday Times reported on Oct. 5, citing two anonymous sources in government, that the decision to drop the charges against the pair came after a meeting involving British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, and the Foreign Office’s top civil servant, Sir Oliver Robbins.

The Sunday Times reported that Powell said a key witness for the prosecution would use evidence based on the National Security Strategy 2025, a document published in June.

In the document, it states, “We will establish greater robustness and consistency in how we approach major strategic challenges such as the impact of China as a global actor.”

That sentence may appear ironic, considering that the government was unwilling to supply the evidence the CPS required to support the prosecution of two men accused of spying for China.

Government Response

Starmer’s press secretary told reporters on Oct. 6, “The suggestion that the government withheld evidence, withdrew witnesses, or restricted the ability of witnesses to draw on particular bits of evidence is all untrue.”

The press secretary said the previous Conservative government’s policy was to call China an “epoch-defining challenge” but not an enemy.

On Oct. 8, Starmer, who is himself a former DPP, told reporters: “We were disappointed that the trial didn’t proceed, but the position is very clear that the trial would have had to take place on the basis of the situation as it was at the time under the previous Tory government.

“You have to prosecute people on the basis of the circumstances at the time of the alleged offense.”

How Does London View China?

On Sept. 13, 2023, Starmer accused then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Conservative, of not doing enough to curb threats from China.

Referring to a report of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, Starmer said, “That set out the government have no clear strategy when it comes to China, have failed to support the intelligence agencies, and are leaving the UK ’severely handicapped' in managing our future security.”

In November 2023, defending his decision to bring back David Cameron—who was accused by Starmer of having close links with China—as foreign secretary, Sunak said: “China represents an epoch-defining challenge. That’s why we have taken strong and robust steps to protect ourselves against the risk that it poses.”

Days after becoming prime minister in July 2024, Starmer said his government would switch between cooperation and “robust challenge” when dealing with China.

In June, then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy made a statement about the government’s so-called China audit, which he said would “deliver a long-term strategy—moving beyond cheap rhetoric to a data-driven, cross-government approach.”

Lammy said the audit informed the Strategic Defence Review, which assessed China as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge.”

On Oct. 10, his successor as foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, told the BBC, “We know China poses threats to UK national security.”

What Will Happen Now?

On Oct. 10, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he was “investigating” the affair and told LBC: “I don’t think that the public explanation that’s been given so far is at all adequate. ... It deserves a much fuller explanation.”

Parliament reconvened on Oct. 13, and lawmakers are due to debate the China spy trial collapse and its implications.

On Oct. 15, the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, will have a chance to challenge Starmer’s explanation for the collapse of the China spy trial in Prime Minister’s Question Time.

On Oct. 12, Badenoch said she had written to Starmer, demanding he answer the question of whether it was still his government’s position to claim “that it would have been impossible to argue that China was a threat in court.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage—who in March told NTD that Britain needs to increase its manufacturing base to counter China—will also get an opportunity to question Starmer.

Powell—a former aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair—is set to appear at a private hearing of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in the following weeks.

PA Media contributed to this report.