MI5 was fully aware that an agent it employed was a far-right misogynist abuser who was obsessed with violence. The office of the investigatory powers commissioner (IPCO) watchdog has now said none of this appeared to concern the agent’s MI5 handlers. A woman, known only as X, whom the agent brutally abused, has called for a full apology.
Legal magazine the Justice Gap reported on 7 July:
MI5 enacted a cover up after one of their agents, a neo-Nazi obsessed with violence, attacked his then partner, known as Beth.
Following reporting by the BBC, about which the government took legal action to try and suppress, the office of the investigatory powers commissioner (IPCO) launched an inquiry into MI5’s handling of the allegations.
As the Canary reported on 17 March 2026:
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.
MI5 chief Ken McCallum confirmed in March that:
the agency had settled Beth’s legal claim before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which is the specialist court for handling allegations against the UK’s intelligence services.
The settlement included a confidential damages payment and a private apology. However, MI5 stated that it was made ‘without admission of liability’.
In a new statement to the BBC, IPCO said it had:
identified serious failings in MI5’s management of agent X.
Adding that it:
required MI5 to take action to address these failings.
However, the body also said:
MI5 subsequently made significant changes to its policies, practices and procedures, which have been tested at subsequent inspections.
MI5’s work in this area is ongoing and IPCO will continue to supervise this through its rigorous inspection programme.
MI5 admits it should never have employed him
The spy agency even carried out its own internal review in 2020. That investigation said the individual should never have been “used as a covert human intelligence source (CHIS)”:
This whole case has been a disaster for everyone, and on reflection, we shouldn’t have touched him [X] as a CHIS.
Yet MI5 did nothing…
The agent’s victim, known as Beth, gave her first interview since MI5 settled with her. She told the BBC that:
They can’t be trusted because they’ve already lied in court and painted me out to look a certain way and made me feel like I didn’t have a voice or a valid story, but they have now done a 360-degree turn and paid compensation.
Beth’s lawyer Kate Ellis said:
The findings of IPCO’s 2024 report are nothing short of devastating for MI5. They show, beyond doubt, that MI5 knew of the warning signs that Agent X posed a serious risk to the public – and to women in particular – but continued deploying him, without managing those risks.
MI5’s website claims its mission is:
to keep the country safe, both now and in the future.
How recruiting and retaining a far-right neo-Nazi sympathiser with a known fetish for violence squares with these aims is unclear. But it is clear that it is long past time the security services were subject to proper democratic scrutiny.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
