UK court clears MI5 of contempt proceedings over misleading evidence

Britain's domestic spy agency MI5 and its staff will not face contempt of court proceedings for providing false information to London's High Court, the court ruled on Tuesday, prompting the agency's chief to once again apologize for "serious failures".

"It would not be in the public interest to initiate contempt proceedings against any individual officer, against the Director General of MI5 or against MI5 itself," the High Court said in its ruling.

The court added that, if police considered they had sufficient evidence of an offence such as misconduct in public office or perverting the course of justice, it could be passed to prosecutors.

MI5 chief Ken McCallum apologised last year after the agency provided untrue information about a right-wing extremist who was a covert human intelligence source, sometimes referred to as an agent.

A BBC investigation found the MI5 agent, referred to in court as "Agent X", had abused two former partners and told one of them, known only as "Beth", that he worked for MI5 in order to terrorize her.

When Britain's attorney-general sought an injunction to prevent the BBC identifying the man, an MI5 witness said the agency had relied on its longstanding policy of neither confirming nor denying informants' identities.

But an MI5 media officer had in fact confirmed to a BBC journalist that Agent X was a covert human intelligence source, meaning MI5 had misled the High Court and also a tribunal in which Beth had sued MI5 over her treatment.

Providing a false statement to courts can be prosecuted as a contempt of court.

In a statement on Tuesday, MI5 chief McCallum said: "Today's judgment underlines MI5's serious failures in this case. I repeat my apology for those failures, and for the additional distress they caused to Beth."