Henry Blaxland KC of the Garden Court Crime Team acted for one of the defendants, Christopher Cash, instructed by Alastair Lyon of Birnberg Peirce.
Prosecutors have announced they are dropping charges against two men, Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, who had been accused of spying for China. Outside of the Old Bailey, Mr Cash stated that he was “relieved that justice has been served”.
Christopher Cash was accused of gathering and providing information prejudicial to the safety and interests of the state, in breach of the Official Secrets Act, between January 2022 and February 2023.
Mr Cash, from London, had worked as a parliamentary researcher in Westminster. He was arrested in March 2023 and charged in April 2024 with providing prejudicial information to a foreign state.
At the Old Bailey this morning, the CPS stated that the evidence did not meet the threshold required to proceed to trial. The co-defendants were due to appear at Woolwich Crown Court from 6 October.
In his submission to the Court on behalf of Mr Cash, Henry stated:
‘The prosecution’s decision to proceed against CC was ill-judged. We are entirely confident that if the case had proceeded to trial, once the prosecution evidence had been subjected to scrutiny it would have become apparent that there was no case for him to answer.
After his arrest, but before he was charged, he was, extraordinarily, named by newspapers as a China spy, a story which was then picked up by the rest of the media. As a result, his reputation was destroyed…
We need to make it clear that our client is entirely innocent and should never been arrested, let alone prosecuted. We simply hope that he is now able to rebuild his life.”
The case has received widespread media coverage, including in: BBC News, The Guardian, Financial Times
