By Alistair Smout
MUMBAI (Reuters) -British prosecutors on Tuesday said they did “everything possible” to bring a trial of two men accused of spying for China to court, but it collapsed when the government declined to label Beijing an enemy.
In an unexpected move, British prosecutors last month dropped charges of spying for China against two men just weeks before they were due to go on trial.
The men, Christopher Cash, 30, a former director of the China Research Group think tank, and Christopher Berry, 33, were first arrested in March 2023, and in April the following year were charged with passing politically sensitive information to a Chinese intelligence agent. They denied all the accusations against them.
The charges were made under the Official Secrets Act which specifies it is a crime to communicate any documents which might be useful to “an enemy”.
The government has said that the collapse of the case was due to a decision made by prosecutors who relied on language used by the previous government in its China policy.
In a letter on Tuesday, Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said that following a 2024 judgment in a case against Bulgarians accused of spying for Russia, the Official Secrets Act only applied to states considered an enemy.
He said prosecutors had made efforts to obtain evidence from the current government “over many months” following the judgment, but assessed in late August 2025 that the required evidence would not be forthcoming.
“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,” Parkinson wrote in the letter, adding that given the “unusual circumstance” of government briefings he was providing “further information to contextualise the position”.
“It is important to provide assurance … that everything possible was done to bring this case to court.”
The Conservatives, who were in government until 2024, and other opposition political parties have accused Starmer’s Labour government of deliberately collapsing the trial to avoid upsetting China.
Speaking to journalists en route to India, Starmer said he had briefly read the letter and would not give a view on it one way or another, but said again that the designation of China at the time of the alleged offence in 2023 was what mattered.
“You have to prosecute people on the basis on what was the state of affairs at the time of the offence,” said Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions himself. “Nothing changes that fundamental, whoever is in government.”
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
