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Raw Blame History

Statutory remit

The Security Service Act 1989 placed the service on a statutory footing, in the words "There shall continue to be a Security Service." Its function is "the protection of national security" and, in particular, its protection against threats from espionage, terrorism and sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means.² The Act also gives the service a function of safeguarding the economic well-being of the United Kingdom against threats posed by persons outside the British Islands, and a function of supporting police forces and other law enforcement agencies in the prevention and detection of serious crime.² The serious crime function was added by the Security Service Act 1996.³

Before 1989 the service was governed by the royal prerogative and, from September 24, 1952, by a directive from the Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, to the Director General. The directive described the service as "part of the defence forces of the country," with a task of "the defence of the realm as a whole, from external and internal dangers arising from attempts at espionage and sabotage, or from actions of persons and organisations whether directed from within or without the country, which may be judged to be subversive of the state." It was kept secret until after the Profumo affair of 1963, and counter-terrorism was added to the service's functions in 1972.⁴ Introducing the Security Service Bill in the House of Commons on December 15, 1988, the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, said that the directive, published in Lord Denning's report, continued to apply and that the Bill would turn its language into a statutory requirement.⁵

Cold War counterintelligence

MI5's primary Cold War mission was counterintelligence against KGB operations in the United Kingdom. This included monitoring Soviet intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover at the Soviet Embassy, running double agents against the KGB, and investigating penetrations of British institutions. The Cambridge Five spy ring of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, all Soviet agents recruited while at Cambridge in the 1930s, was the most damaging penetration of British intelligence and government.¹

Cambridge Five and the Blunt confession

The Security Service's personal file on Blunt, covering 1935 to 1951, describes him as recruited by Russian intelligence while a student and then a don at Cambridge University, a member of the Cambridge Five, and a man who worked for MI5 from 1940 to 1945 and passed significant quantities of secret intelligence to the Russians. The file says that in 1951 he helped Burgess and Maclean defect to Moscow, and that in 1964 he confessed his espionage activities and was given immunity from prosecution in exchange for information about his fellow Russian intelligence agents.⁶

Christopher Andrew wrote that Blunt moved from the Intelligence Corps to the Security Service in June 1940, after Victor Rothschild, then an MI5 counter-sabotage specialist, introduced him to Guy Liddell, the head of B Division, who offered him a post. Andrew wrote that Soviet intelligence recorded Blunt under the codename TONY, and that late in 1940 Blunt recruited Burgess as a Security Service agent under the codename VAUXHALL.⁷ Blunt served as MI5's Director of Analysis during World War II while passing intelligence to Moscow.

The role was kept secret until Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, confirmed it in the Commons on November 21, 1979. Thatcher told the House that the Attorney-General, Sir John Hobson, had decided "that it was in the public interest to offer an immunity from prosecution," and that "to this day there is no evidence which could be used as a basis for prosecution against Blunt." She said Blunt had been interviewed on eleven occasions over the following eight years, and that "both at the time of his confession and subsequently he has co-operated in the inquiries of the security authorities."⁸

The internal debate about whether Roger Hollis himself was a Soviet agent, investigated inconclusively by MI5 during the 1970s, demonstrated the organizational paranoia and institutional damage that resulted from the Cambridge Five penetration. The Hollis suspicion was never proven.¹

Personal files

The Security Service's personal files on Louis Dolivet, held in volumes KV 2/4365 to KV 2/4369 and covering 1935 to 1959, describe him as "a secret communist" who "was active in the pre-war European peace movement, apparently acting under the instructions of Comintern leader Willi MUNZENBERG." The catalogue entry for the first volume says that from 1937 he was Secretary of the communist-influenced International Peace Campaign while presenting himself as a moderate socialist, that he moved to the United States in 1941 and continued similar activities until 1950, when he settled in Switzerland after being denied an entry visa, and that he later became a film producer and appeared to have given up any communist activity.⁹

Harold Wilson allegations and the Spycatcher litigation

Peter Wright, a former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, wrote a memoir, Spycatcher (1987), that the Thatcher government sought to suppress through court injunctions in Australia and elsewhere. Wright wrote that MI5 officers had plotted against Harold Wilson's Labour government in the 1970s, believing Wilson to be a Soviet agent, and the book disclosed classified technical intelligence methods.¹⁰

The Security Service's catalogue describes file KV 4/480, covering May 1963 to September 1968, as recording discussions between the Director General and the Prime Minister, "primarily Harold Wilson," on topics of significant security concern.¹¹

Wilson's own suspicions had surfaced in 1977, when he gave Barrie Penrose and Roger Courtiour material for articles in The Observer. Andrew wrote that the Deputy Director General, John Jones, noted on July 27, 1977 that no one had fathomed Wilson's purpose in making the allegations, and that the Director General, Sir Michael Hanley, briefed the Home Secretary and then met the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, for an hour and a half. A Downing Street press statement of August 23, 1977 said Callaghan was satisfied that the allegations did not constitute grounds for lack of confidence in the Security Service or for a special inquiry, and that at no time had the service undertaken electronic surveillance in 10 Downing Street or the Prime Minister's room in the Commons.¹²

On May 6, 1987, after Callaghan called for a review by a senior judge of the 1977 findings, Thatcher told the Commons that the Director General, Antony Duff, had advised her that over the preceding four months he had conducted an investigation that included interviews with officers in post at the time, and that he had "found no evidence of any truth in the allegations." In her words, he had advised that all the officers interviewed "have categorically denied" involvement in any plans to undermine Wilson's government, that "No evidence or indication has been found of any plot or conspiracy against Lord Wilson by or within the security service," and that Wilson "has never been the subject of a security service investigation or of any form of electronic or other surveillance by the security service." Thatcher added: "I do not believe that any further inquiry would be justified." Callaghan replied that "there is a direct conflict of evidence between what Mr. Peter Wright has said and what I was told by the director-general of the Security Service in 1977."¹³

Andrew wrote that Wright claimed in Spycatcher that thirty MI5 officers had approved a plot; that in a television interview Wright said "The maximum number was eight or nine. Very often it was only three" and, asked how many were still serious, answered "One, I should say"; and that Wright retired in January 1976. Andrew recorded that Stella Rimington, as Director General, invited former Labour home secretaries and other senior party figures to her office to dispel the allegation, and that she judged the attempt a failure.¹² Andrew also wrote that the Director General's 1987 internal inquiry examined all relevant files and interviewed all relevant officers, serving and retired.¹²

Andrew's account of the litigation runs as follows. Wright cooperated secretly with Chapman Pincher on Their Trade is Treachery (1981), with Victor Rothschild's encouragement, and appeared in a Granada World in Action programme on July 16, 1984. In September 1985 the Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers, began proceedings in Australia against Wright and Heinemann Australia, and admitted for the purposes of those proceedings that the allegations in Spycatcher were correct. The trial opened in Sydney in November 1986. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, was the principal government witness, and was cross-examined by Wright's counsel, Malcolm Turnbull; he acknowledged that he had been "economical with the truth." The government lost in the New South Wales Supreme Court, and its attempts to keep injunctions in force in Britain failed in the House of Lords in the summer of 1988.¹⁴

The European Court of Human Rights decided two cases arising from the Spycatcher restraints on November 26, 1991. In Observer and Guardian v. United Kingdom, the court found by fourteen votes to ten that there was no violation of Article 10 for the period from July 11, 1986 to July 30, 1987, and a unanimous violation of Article 10 for the period from July 30, 1987 to October 13, 1988.¹⁵ In The Sunday Times (No. 2) v. United Kingdom it found a unanimous violation of Article 10.¹⁶ The Cabinet Office holds a file titled "Peter Wright Case" for August 27, 1987 to October 20, 1988, and a second for October 24, 1988 to April 19, 1990.¹⁷

Surveillance of CND and the unions, and the Massiter disclosures

Andrew wrote that by the mid-1970s members of the Communist Party of Great Britain held eight of the fifteen seats on the national executive of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and that the service opened a temporary file on Bruce Kent as a "possible Anarchist" when he became chairman in 1977, converting it to a permanent file when he became general secretary in 1979. He wrote that Cathy Massiter opened a temporary file on the CND chairman Joan Ruddock in 1982, converted to a personal file in 1983 because of her meetings with Mikhail Bogdanov, whom Andrew identified as a KGB officer. A telephone check on John Cox, a CND vice chairman and member of the Communist Party executive, began in 1983 and was cancelled in 1985; Andrew quoted a later review by a senior MI5 officer that "Massiter may be right in questioning whether the warrant was strictly justified." Andrew wrote that in March 1983 the service gave the Ministry of Defence open-source material on the political affiliations of seven leading CND members, and quoted a later internal investigation finding that the Ministry "was anxious to obtain ammunition against CND."¹⁸

On the miners' strike of 1984 and 1985, Andrew wrote that the Director of F Branch told the Directors' Meeting on March 13, 1984 that there did not appear to be significant subversive involvement; that Arthur Scargill had been the subject of a Home Secretary's warrant for telephone interception since November 1973 and the National Union of Mineworkers vice president Mick McGahey for most of the period since 1970; that from late June 1984 copies of the service's Box 500 situation reports on the strike were sent to Thatcher through the Cabinet Secretary; and that Rimington, then head of F2, recalled "agonising" over continuing the warrant on Scargill. Andrew also recorded the allegation, in a Commons motion by Labour MPs, that the NUM chief executive Roger Windsor had been an MI5 agent, which Rimington and Prime Minister John Major denied and for which Windsor won damages from the Sunday Express.¹⁸

Massiter, who had left the service, appeared in the Channel 4 20/20 Vision documentary "MI5's Official Secrets," a retired Security Service secretary also contributing. After an advance viewing on February 20, 1985, the Independent Broadcasting Authority stopped transmission; the Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers, decided against prosecution on March 5; the ban was lifted on March 6 and the programme was shown on March 8. Home Secretary Leon Brittan asked Lord Bridge of Harwich to investigate whether the required warrants had been obtained and the criteria applied. Bridge began on February 28 and reported on March 6 that there had been no wrongdoing; Andrew wrote that 6,129 Home Secretary's warrants had been issued over the previous fifteen years, that the Daily Telegraph called the report "hasty and bland," and that Roy Jenkins said Bridge had been made to appear a "poodle of the executive."¹⁹

On December 10, 1984, asked by Gerald Kaufman about allegations of telephone tapping and mail interference affecting CND, Brittan declined an inquiry, saying he was satisfied that the interception arrangements were strictly applied.²⁰ In the Commons debate of March 12, 1985, Brittan said he had concluded "that the security service has carried out no operation, investigation, surveillance or action against any individual otherwise than for the purposes laid down in its directive," and that there had been no allegations of unauthorised interception in the film.²¹ Kaufman told the House that, according to Massiter, Cox did not meet the test of a major subversive, terrorist or espionage threat; that secret information obtained by covert means for MI5 was passed to the Ministry of Defence's DS19 unit, and that a briefing paper on CND was prepared for MI5 by the Secretary of State for Defence; and that MI5 "deliberately and wrongfully classified Joan Ruddock, the Chairman of CND, as a subversive."²¹ Andrew wrote that the charge about Ruddock was mistaken, since the service's concern was her meetings with a Soviet journalist who was a KGB officer.¹⁹

During the Commons second reading of the Security Service Bill on December 15, 1988, David Winnick told the House that Massiter had said CND leaders were spied upon, that national executive members and active branch members of the National Council for Civil Liberties were placed on permanent record, and that the Opposition suspected CND was targeted because the Secretary of State for Defence gave direct orders to MI5.⁵ Andrew wrote that Massiter swore an affidavit in the case before the European Court of Human Rights brought by the NCCL's former officers Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt, that the service concluded they would probably win because of the absence of a statutory basis, and that the European Court's judgment in Leander v. Sweden (March 1987) and that Duff pressed the case for a Security Service Act, which Andrew wrote was strengthened by Leander v. Sweden (March 1987) and by the pending Harman and Hewitt case.¹⁹

Kincora Boys' Home

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, known as the Hart Inquiry, examined in Volume 9 whether the security services knew of the sexual abuse of residents at Kincora Boys' Home and whether they exploited, connived in or ignored it. The inquiry defined the security services as RUC Special Branch, MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service and British Army Intelligence.²² Allegations about what those services knew came from individuals including Colin Wallace and Brian Gemmell.²²

The inquiry recorded that the first reference to William McGrath in MI5 records was a mid-June 1971 report by an MI5 covert human intelligence source on a loyalist meeting addressed by "a man named McGrath," the "Officer Commanding" of the "Tara Brigade," and that MI5 did not create a permanent file on McGrath until May 1977. A letter of April 7, 1972 from James Miller, reporting what a third party had told him, said that "Tara CO McGrath had been accused of assaulting small boys."²³

The inquiry found that it was not until 1980 that MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Defence and Special Branch became aware that McGrath had been sexually abusing residents, when that became a public allegation.²⁴ By November 1973 MI5, unlike the other three agencies, had also received information that the person later identified as McGrath had been accused of "assaulting small boys."²⁵ The inquiry held that it would be unjustified to criticise MI5 for not passing that information to Special Branch, citing the eighteen months between receipt and the later identification of McGrath as the leader of TARA, and the assessment at the time that the report was of dubious reliability.²⁶ It also stated that the failure to pass the information "may have been influenced by a desire to protect the existence of their source."²⁶

On John McKeague, the inquiry recorded the statement of MI5 Officer 9004 that MI5 had no compromising film of him and made no attempt to blackmail him, and that one MI5 officer put forward in November 1976 an operational proposal, never endorsed, that "serious consideration should be given to using [McKeague's] homosexual tendencies to recruit him." The inquiry found that an MI5 officer discussed the possibility of exploiting McKeague's homosexuality with Gemmell, probably at a lunch on September 7, 1976, and that it never progressed beyond a proposal.²⁷

A Note for File dated October 17, 1989, written by an MI5 officer, recorded a meeting with an SIS officer who had referred to at least one agent who was aware of sexual malpractice at Kincora. In a 2016 witness statement, MI5 witness Officer 9004 concluded: "Extensive reviews of its files enables MI5 to confirm that no MI5 CHIS produced intelligence about child abuse at Kincora prior to the media revelations of January 1980."²⁸ The inquiry also recorded a telex of June 29 and 30, 1982 from the MI5 Assistant Director and Coordinator of Intelligence about the Caskey Phase Three investigation, which referred to the possibility of creating "false files." The inquiry stated that the use of the expression "was at best unwise and at worst demonstrated a willingness to deceive the police," and that the telex went on to say "we should be in difficulty if we attempt to deceive him and manufacture false files or deny the existence of real ones"; it was satisfied that the suggestion was not pursued.²⁹

The inquiry also recorded that MI5 investigated Maurice Oldfield in 1980 and 1981 in a review of his Positive Vetting clearance, and that the inquiry examined allegations that Oldfield had visited Kincora or had dealings with McGrath. In a letter dated February 19, 1981, the Director General, Howard Smith, wrote that Oldfield "laid himself dangerously open to compromise" through his admitted homosexual relations with hotel stewards in the Far East during the 1950s.³⁰

The inquiry examined the memorandum of November 8, 1974, known as GC80, which Wallace maintained he wrote in that month. It stated that there was "an extremely strong circumstantial case" that the document "was not created in November 1974 as Mr Wallace maintains, but was created in the form in which it emerged in 1984 at a considerably later date."³¹

Stakeknife and the disclosure failures

Operation Kenova, a Police Service of Northern Ireland investigation led by Jon Boutcher and later by Iain Livingstone, examined the agent known as Stakeknife, a figure inside the Provisional IRA's internal security unit who was handled by the Army's Force Research Unit (FRU). The Interim Report, published on March 8, 2024, stated that MI5 "was not responsible for how Stakeknife was targeted or run and could not sensibly be criticised for the conduct or operation of the FRU or any of its agents."³²³³

The Kenova Final Report quotes that passage and then sets out an updated assessment. Kenova found that MI5 "was aware of Stakeknife's recruitment from the outset" and knew of his involvement in the abduction and interrogation of suspected agents "who were then murdered." It found that MI5 was involved in briefing and tasking him through the FRU, received debriefs on all his intelligence, and supplied specialist technical support. It recorded that MI5 expressed concerns and reservations about him, that MI5 recommended the review of his handling conducted toward the end of his deployment, and that MI5 advised the FRU on his possible relocation. The report found "no evidence of MI5 personnel escalating any concerns" about Stakeknife or his handling to more senior personnel within MI5 or any other member of the security forces.³⁴

In April 2024 MI5 informed Kenova that it had found a significant quantity of previously undisclosed material relating to Stakeknife. MI5 stated that the material had been found in mid-March 2024, within days of the Interim Report being published, during work to organise and digitise its Northern Ireland legacy archive, and that related emails "strongly indicate" the material had been transferred from Stormont to London in 2004 for disclosure to the Stevens Inquiry. The first tranche, received on May 7, 2024, covered almost the entirety of the period during which Stakeknife operated as an agent. Further tranches were notified in May and October 2024.³⁵

A review of MI5's disclosure process, carried out by former Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball between October 2024 and January 2025 at the request of MI5's Director General, concluded that "none of the material was, deliberately withheld from Operation Kenova at either an individual or an organisational level." Ball found that MI5's disclosure exercise drew on historic information management practices for Northern Ireland material that were not as strong as those MI5 had in place, and made six recommendations, all accepted by MI5.³⁶ Livingstone called the late disclosure "deeply regrettable," noting that it came after the Kenova investigative phase had concluded and after the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland had made decisions on prosecutions.³⁷

The Kenova Final Report, published on December 9, 2025, urged the government to depart from its neither confirm nor deny policy on Stakeknife's identity. Livingstone called on the government to name him publicly, describing the agent's offending as "grotesque serious crime" including torture and murder.³⁸ On February 9, 2026 the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee published a report concluding that revealing the identity of Stakeknife would be strongly in the public interest.³⁹

Legal authority: the Third Direction case and criminal conduct authorisations

In a judgment of December 20, 2019 the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled three to two that MI5's policy on authorising agents to take part in crime was lawful. The claimants were Privacy International, Reprieve, the Committee on the Administration of Justice and the Pat Finucane Centre, and the case is known as the "Third Direction" case after a direction from the Prime Minister to the Intelligence Services Commissioner, whose existence was disclosed in the Commissioner's confidential annex for 2014 and which was published on March 1, 2018.⁴⁰ The policy under challenge was the Security Service Guidelines on the use of agents who participate in criminality, the current version dating from March 2011, with earlier versions of 1995 or before, 1997 and 2003. The Guidelines stated that an authorisation "has no legal effect and does not confer on either the agent or those involved in the authorisation process any immunity from prosecution," and would be the service's "explanation and justification" if the agent's conduct came under scrutiny by the police or prosecuting authorities.⁴⁰ The tribunal recorded a letter of September 23, 2011 from Andrew Parker, then Deputy Director General, to the Intelligence Services Commissioner, Sir Mark Waller, stating that the Guidelines had been in place since the early 1990s and that incoming Home Secretaries had been briefed on them.⁴⁰

The majority (the President, Lord Justice Singh, Lord Boyd of Duncansby and Sir Richard McLaughlin) held that there was an implied power in the 1989 Act for the service to run agents embedded in criminal organisations, and dismissed the claim.⁴⁰ Charles Flint QC and Professor Graham Zellick QC dissented. Flint wrote that he was "unable to find that the 1989 Act provides any legal basis for the policy under challenge." The two dissenting judges published the first dissenting opinions in the tribunal's history.⁴⁰⁴¹ The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal on March 9, 2021.⁴²

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021 provides a statutory scheme for criminal conduct authorisations. Its first section is headed "Criminal conduct authorisations."⁴³

Westminster allegations, the Dickens dossier and the IICSA searches

Geoffrey Dickens, a Conservative MP, asked the Attorney General in March 1981 whether he would prosecute Sir Peter Hayman and whether the security implications of entries in Hayman's diaries, referred to in Tom O'Carroll's trial at the Old Bailey, would be investigated. In 1983 and 1984 he held a series of meetings with the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, at which he provided information purporting to identify other high-profile abusers in government and the Royal Household. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found that what was in the "Dickens dossier" and how many dossiers there were is unclear, and that several files or documents have misleadingly become known by that name.⁴⁴

IICSA commissioned searches of documents at MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ, and of Metropolitan Police Special Branch records, and its Chair examined documents at MI5 headquarters, where the vast majority of relevant documents were found. The report set out a table prepared by the MI5 witness of information MI5 held. It included the 1980 vetting review of Oldfield; information received in 1980 that Hayman engaged in sexual activities with young boys; in 1981 about Tom Driberg; in the mid-1980s from two sources that Peter Morrison "has a penchant for small boys"; in 1982 about William Van Straubenzee, shared with the Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister; and in 1973 a police report about an alleged video recording involving Anthony Lambton. The Leon Brittan entry records information received in the mid-1980s that suggested Brittan or a close MP associate engaged in sexual relations with teenagers, followed within a day by information that it did not relate to Brittan but was rumoured to relate to the associate, and within the week by information that the rumour had been started by a prisoner turned down for parole out of vindictiveness. The panel concluded that "no material was found at any of the four organisations to indicate either the existence of a 'Westminster paedophile network' or of any attempts to cover up or suppress information about the existence of such a network."⁴⁵

On Morrison, the report recorded that on January 6, 1986 Duff wrote to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, recalling unsubstantiated rumours of 1983, and that a member of his staff, Eliza Manningham-Buller, had passed on information from a friend. A letter of July 7, 1987 from Patrick Walker of the Security Service to Armstrong, on a security briefing given to Morrison, confirmed a meeting between Morrison's agent and the Labour candidate in Chester. The MI5 witness described it as "a matter of regret that no consideration was given at the time to the criminal aspects of the matter," the corporate record showing a "narrow, security-related view." MI5 had no specific policy relating to the protection of children at risk before 2014.⁴⁶

The Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the UK organisation that operated from 1974 to 1984, was monitored by MI5 as part of its surveillance of fringe political organisations during the period when domestic extremism surveillance was broadly defined. Whether MI5 actively managed a source within PIE, and whether its handler relationship with one or more PIE members amounted to knowing facilitation rather than surveillance, was raised by investigative journalists and in Parliamentary debate. Former PIE chairman Tom O'Carroll acknowledged police and security service interest in PIE's membership. Tim Hulbert, who worked at the Home Office Voluntary Services Unit, gave accounts in 2013, 2014 and 2019 that a colleague there told him, in a period he placed between 1978 and 1980, that a grant to PIE was extended at the request of the Security Services (his 2013 account) or of Special Branch (his 2019 account), who found it useful to identify people with paedophile inclinations. IICSA wrote that it did not consider that Hulbert had done other than his honest best, found "no independent support" for the allegation, found "some evidence which undermines it," and stated that there was no available evidence that PIE received Home Office funding.⁴⁷ The broader question of whether the official secrecy framework (the Official Secrets Act) and intelligence community relationships contributed to the non-prosecution of PIE members and associated figures in positions of political power was raised by IICSA.

Advisers and consultants

William Sargant, the psychiatrist, is described in a 2006 book by Dominic Streatfeild as an informal consultant to MI5. Streatfeild's principal source, a senior psychiatrist described as a former close colleague of Sargant, confirmed that Sargant "loved doing things for the government" and discussed the advisory role openly in informal terms, but stated that he was "never an official psychiatrist to either MI5 or MI6."⁴⁸

The death of the British journalist Jonathan Moyle in Chile in 1990 was the subject of a police account that the Chilean investigating judge began to doubt. British officials in Chile and, it was understood, members of MI5 in London put it about that Moyle "was a sexual deviant who hanged himself while attempting to obtain pleasure." The Guardian reported on June 2, 1990 that no evidence had been provided to support that characterisation.⁴⁹

Liaison and stay-behind networks

Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist, gave British intelligence copies of notes he had made from KGB files. Christopher Andrew and Mitrokhin published the material in The Sword and the Shield (1999).⁵⁰ The Intelligence and Security Committee reported on the security and intelligence agencies' handling of information provided by Mitrokhin on June 13, 2000.⁵¹

The Foreign Office kept files titled "Operation Gladio (planned undercover operations in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe)" for 1990 and 1991.⁵²⁵³ MI5 shares liaison relationships with the other domestic services of the Five Eyes countries, among them the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, that derive from the UKUSA framework.¹

Mossad liaison and the 1988 expulsions

Peter Hounam wrote that after Sowan was sentenced to eleven years in June 1988, the government expelled Arie Regev, the Mossad's liaison with MI5 and MI6, together with other Israeli officers. He wrote that the expulsion was taken on the initiative of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and MI5, and over the objection of MI6.⁵⁴

Matrix Churchill and BCCI

Alan Friedman wrote that an executive of Matrix Churchill, Mark Gutteridge, "first told MI5 about Gerald Bull and his supergun in May 1988," and an MI5 officer was reported to have confirmed at the 1992 trial of the Matrix Churchill directors that Gutteridge had reported to the service on Bull's company.⁵⁵

The 1992 report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate on BCCI, by Senators John Kerry and Hank Brown, recorded that a British judge had declined to let the committee receive BCCI documents held in the United Kingdom without the written "permission" of the depositors involved, "such as Abu Nidal Organization." It stated: "Still other BCCI documents in the United Kingdom have been segregated and sealed by British intelligence (MI-5), and withheld from dissemination to anyone."⁵⁶

Lucy Komisar wrote that Ghassan Qassem alerted MI5 after BCCI headquarters told him to destroy a document, and that MI5 then traced payments from the BCCI account of a Syrian intelligence operative to the Abu Nidal agent who in 1986 had used his girlfriend in an unsuccessful attempt to smuggle a bomb aboard an Israeli airliner at Heathrow Airport.⁵⁷

Operation Midland and the Westminster allegations

Carl Beech, whose allegations to the Metropolitan Police in 2014 named former heads of MI5 and MI6 among others, was convicted in 2019 of fraud and perverting the course of justice.⁵⁸ The two former heads named by Beech were Michael Hanley and Maurice Oldfield, the latter the subject of the 1980 to 1981 vetting review recorded by the Hart Inquiry.³⁰

Press relations

In October 2016 Andrew Parker, then Director General, gave an interview to The Guardian that the paper described as the first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's history.⁵⁹

Footnotes

Andrew, Christopher. The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5. Allen Lane, 2009 (US edition Knopf, 2009). ↩︎
Security Service Act 1989, c. 5, s. 1(1) to (4). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/5/section/1 ↩︎
Security Service Act 1996, c. 35. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/35/contents ↩︎
Privacy International and Others v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Others, IPT/17/86/CH, judgment of December 20, 2019, paras. 44 and 45 (quoting the Directive of September 24, 1952, paras. 2 and 3, and citing Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, pp. 323 and 615). https://investigatorypowerstribunal.org.uk/judgement/privacy-international-others-v-secretary-of-state-for-foreign-and-commonwealth-affairs-others-3/ ↩︎
House of Commons, Hansard HC Deb 15 December 1988, vol. 143, cc. 1104-81, Security Service Bill, second reading (Douglas Hurd, Home Secretary; David Winnick). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1988/dec/15/security-service-bill ↩︎
The National Archives, KV 2/4700, "Anthony BLUNT: British. BLUNT was recruited by the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS) to talent spot..." (Security Service personal file, 1935 to 1951). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C19404936. The same description is carried in KV 2/4704 (1956 to 1964) and KV 2/4720 (1972 to 1973). ↩︎
Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section C, "Soviet Penetration and the Communist Party." ↩︎
House of Commons, Hansard HC Deb 21 November 1979, vol. 974, cc. 402-520, debate on Anthony Blunt, including the statement by the Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1979/nov/21/mr-anthony-blunt ↩︎
The National Archives, KV 2/4365, "Louis DOLIVET alias DOLIVEUX, Ludovic BRECHER, ULIANU, BOVET" (Security Service personal file, 1935 to 1937). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16548842. Later volumes KV 2/4366 to KV 2/4369 cover 1937 to 1959 and carry the same catalogue heading. ↩︎
Wright, Peter. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. Viking, 1987. ↩︎
The National Archives, KV 4/480, "Liaison between the Director General and the Prime Minister" (Security Service policy file, 1963 to 1968). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C19404997 ↩︎
Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section E, "The 'Wilson Plot'," including the Downing Street statement of August 23, 1977, Wright's television interview, and Rimington's account. ↩︎
House of Commons, Hansard HC Deb 6 May 1987, vol. 115, cc. 723-32, "State Security" (private notice question by Neil Kinnock; statement by the Prime Minister; reply by Sir James Callaghan). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1987/may/06/state-security. On Duff's appointment as Director General in spring 1985, see Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section E, "The Origins of the Security Service Act." ↩︎
Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section E, "The Origins of the Security Service Act," on Wright, Pincher, the Australian proceedings, Armstrong's cross-examination and the House of Lords decision. ↩︎
Observer and Guardian v. the United Kingdom, App. No. 13585/88, judgment of 26 November 1991, operative provisions, paras. 1 and 2. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57705 ↩︎
The Sunday Times (No. 2) v. the United Kingdom, App. No. 13166/87, judgment of 26 November 1991, operative provisions, para. 1. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57708 ↩︎
The National Archives, CAB 164/2107, "Peter Wright Case" (1987 to 1988), https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C20537828; CAB 164/2108, "Peter Wright Case" (1988 to 1990), Cabinet Office Subject (Theme Series) Files. ↩︎
Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section E, "The Thatcher Government and Subversion." ↩︎
Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, Section E, "The Origins of the Security Service Act," on the Massiter broadcast, the Bridge inquiry, the Commons debate of March 12, 1985, and the origins of the 1989 Act. ↩︎
House of Commons, Hansard HC Deb 10 December 1984, vol. 69, cc. 737-40, "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament." https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1984/dec/10/campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament ↩︎
House of Commons, Hansard HC Deb 12 March 1985, vol. 75, cc. 151-244, Interception of Communications Bill (Leon Brittan; Gerald Kaufman). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1985/mar/12/interception-of-communications-bill ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Kincora Boys' Home (Part 2), Chapter 28, Module 15, paras. 1-4. https://www.hiainquiry.org/sites/hiainquiry/files/media-files/Chapter%2028%20-%20Module%2015%20-%20Kincora%20Boys%E2%80%99%20Home%20%28Part%202%29_0.pdf ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 96-97. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, para. 227. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, para. 228. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 229-230. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 155-158. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 633-635, quoting the Note for File of October 17, 1989 and the witness statement of Officer 9004 dated November 29, 2016. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 636-638, quoting the telex of June 29 and 30, 1982 (KIN 4182). ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, paras. 610-614, quoting the letter of the Director General of MI5, Sir Howard Smith, to the Secretary of the Cabinet, February 19, 1981. ↩︎
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, Report, Vol. 9, Chapter 28, para. 572. ↩︎
Operation Kenova, Final Report (December 2025), Part A, sections 3 and 4, on the Interim Report published by the Police Service of Northern Ireland on March 8, 2024. https://www.kenova.co.uk/FINAL%20Kenova%20Report.pdf ↩︎
Operation Kenova, Interim Report (Police Service of Northern Ireland, March 8, 2024), as quoted in Final Report, para. 12.16. ↩︎
Operation Kenova, Final Report, paras. 12.20 to 12.22. ↩︎
Operation Kenova, Final Report, paras. 4.3 to 4.7, covering MI5's letter of April 8, 2024, the tranche dates, and the letter from Livingstone to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland dated August 6, 2025. ↩︎
Helen Ball QPM, Kenova Disclosure: External Review, Unclassified Summary (February 2025), conclusions and recommendations. https://www.kenova.co.uk/Kenova%20External%20Review%20by%20H%20Ball%20Feb%202025%20(002).pdf ↩︎
Operation Kenova, statement of Sir Iain Livingstone QPM, "Report into undisclosed MI5 files published." https://www.kenova.co.uk/report-into-undisclosed-mi5-files-published ↩︎
Operation Kenova, press release, "Final Report: Government urged to name Stakeknife," December 9, 2025. https://www.kenova.co.uk/government-urged-to-name-stakeknife ↩︎
Operation Kenova, statement on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report on naming Stakeknife, "Kenova welcomes report which calls for Stakeknife to be named," February 9, 2026. https://www.kenova.co.uk/kenova-welcomes-report-which-calls-for-stakeknife-to-be-named ↩︎
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Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), press statement on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal judgment, December 20, 2019. https://caj.org.uk/latest/tribunal-judges-divided-on-mi5-secret-approvals-for-serious-crime/ ↩︎
Privacy International and Others v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Others, IPT/17/86 and 87/CH, judgment on the "IPCO issue," October 21, 2021, para. 2 (appeal dismissed March 9, 2021, [2021] EWCA Civ 330). https://investigatorypowerstribunal.org.uk/judgement/privacy-international-others-v-secretary-of-state-for-foreign-and-commonwealth-affairs-others/ ↩︎
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Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Allegations of child sexual abuse linked to Westminster: Investigation Report (February 2020), Part E, paras. 79-80 and 103-129; Part J, para. 29. ↩︎
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Allegations of child sexual abuse linked to Westminster: Investigation Report (February 2020), Part G.3, paras. 49-52, 63, 77 and 79. ↩︎
Streatfeild, Dominic. Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control. Hodder and Stoughton, 2006, ch. 7. ↩︎
Coad, Malcolm, and David Pallister. "Dead journalist sex smear 'foul,'" The Guardian, June 2, 1990, p. 3. ↩︎
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The National Archives, FCO 46/7916, "Operation Gladio (planned undercover operations in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe)" (1990). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17145239 ↩︎
The National Archives, FCO 179/318, "Operation Gladio (planned undercover operations in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe)" (1991). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17418932 ↩︎
Hounam, Peter. The Woman from Mossad: The Story of Mordechai Vanunu and the Israeli Nuclear Program. Vision Paperbacks, 1999, pp. 74, 127. ↩︎
Friedman, Alan. Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq. Bantam, 1993, pp. 78-79, 116, 250; trial of the Matrix Churchill directors, Central Criminal Court, 1992. ↩︎
Kerry, John, and Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm ↩︎
Komisar, Lucy. "BCCI's Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad." https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/BCCIs-Double-Game-Banking-on-America-Banking-on-Jihad-by-Lucy-Komisar.pdf ↩︎
"Carl Beech: Liar, fraudster and paedophile." BBC News, July 26, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49048972 ↩︎
Ewen MacAskill and Paul Johnson, interview with Andrew Parker, director general of MI5, The Guardian, October 31, 2016. ↩︎

47 KiB Raw Blame History