Govt 'disappointed' China spy charges were dropped

ODN

Water and Flooding Minister Emma Hardy says the government is "disappointed" that charges against two men accused of spying for China were dropped last month, adding it collapsed because the previous Conservative government did not label Beijing a threat in 2023. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00So obviously we're disappointed that the prosecution hasn't continued but what

00:04actually happened is based on what happened in 2023. So back in 2023 the

00:09evidence meant the Crown Prosecution Service thought there was enough

00:12evidence to go to prosecution and so therefore they pursued that path. After

00:162023 there was another case in the High Court which changed the evidence bar for

00:21the amount of evidence required to secure a prosecution. So therefore the Crown

00:25Prosecution Service decided that actually there isn't enough evidence and

00:28therefore the case was dropped. Now some people are saying this is to do with

00:32how we've defined our relationship with China but this is all based on how the

00:38previous government saw China back in 2023 and in 2023 China was not labelled a

00:43threat. So you can't retrospectively go back and change the circumstances under

00:48which the evidence was originally taken.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended