MI5’s falsehoods in the case of neo-Nazi spy who abused women
86 comments
·July 6, 2025vintagedave
StopDisinfo910
There are no such things as ‘good guys’ especially for states.
States only believe in their own interests and the narrative always go towards the powerful and the one which won.
That’s the fatal flaw in international "justice" and has been from the start. Where were the people who allowed the nuclear bombing of civilians during the Nuremberg trials? Why was nothing said about the western nation entering the war so late despite what they knew? Because that’s not justice, merely retribution.
Then, you have to considered the role played by secret institutions in democratic countries. Do they serve the citizenship, the national interests (what does that even mean?), the people in power, themselves first and foremost? From history, I wouldn’t trust them very much, even less as a foreigner.
Be wary of any institution or person holding power. Check and balance are deeply needed and we should be horrified every times they are being limited or abused.
If the UK is still serious about being a liberal democracy, this should have sever consequences. I’m sadly fairly sure it won’t.
nordsieck
> States only believe in their own interests and the narrative always go towards the powerful and the one which won.
And depressingly, even that isn't true - states are plagued with the principal-agent problem[1], as is basically every organization.
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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
varjag
Why was nothing said about the western nation entering the war so late despite what they knew?
What do you mean by that? The war had started by attacking the Western nations and the allies. The second front had opened when Germany attacked its former ally nearly 2 years later.
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wizzwizz4
I suspect this is referring to the United States of America.
Hendrikto
> If the UK is still serious about being a liberal democracy
They have not been for quite a while. They are the type of country where you go to jail over a meme.
Xss3
Nobody goes to jail for a meme.
Just like in the USA however there are laws about inciting violence and riots and people have been prosecuted for that.
The bs you're referring to is likely about the guy that went to jail for tweeting that a hotel of migrants should be burned down...during a race riot near the hotel.
Fires were set and people, including those calling for it, were prosecuted.
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sofixa
Who went to jail over a meme?
dataflow
No stance on your conclusion but your arguments are... poor. "Why was nothing said about the western nation entering the war so late despite what they knew? Isn't the obvious answer that. Because that’s not justice, merely retribution." No, it's because you're presenting a false dichotomy? It would've obviously come with huge risks, costs, and more deaths. It's not like there was a big red "Deliver Justice" button they could've pressed to deliver justice anywhere anytime for free, and they somehow refused to press it. The world had already been through World War I, and you can imagine they neither wanted to get closer to another one, nor did people want to risk their own deaths or suicide. You can hate the west all you want for not entering the war earlier or whatever else, but at least maybe do it with something a little stronger than a strawman?
stefan_
Remember when UK police shot a random foreigner on the tube in the head and no one was prosecuted?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jean_Charles_de_Men...
Xss3
The commissioner was found guilty...
pydry
Im not sure it's even that simple. Ive worked for many companies that havent worked in their own self interest. Large organizations captured by small, self interested or ideologically extreme groups often dont.
What the state of Israel is doing, for example, is not in its own interest and the untrammeled support given by the west to what it does is definitely not in our self interest.
ChrisMarshallNY
My father was in the CIA (one of the earliest). He was an idealist who joined out of patriotism, and couldn't reconcile himself with what they were becoming. He ended up resigning. I really feel that it broke him.
MSFT_Edging
The early CIA were basically monsters in men's clothing. Just one dark, twisted scheme after another with no humanity in sight.
ChrisMarshallNY
I think the very earliest had decent folks. I believe it was more like the second-gen CIA (1950s and 60s). He joined in '52 (after graduating Harvard with an LLB, and working for a short time at a law firm), and resigned in '67.
[EDITED TO ADD] I updated to the proper dates, and linked his eulogy.
sys_64738
> I'm not a UK national, but tend to believe in them -- including MI5 -- being the 'good guys'.
MI5/6 are never good guys.
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bigbacaloa
[dead]
greatgib
It is crazy how secret services in a lot of "democratic" countries now have a green pass to violate the national law for their own interests without real consequence.
It reminds me of the secret service in a Nordic country (maybe Denmark?) that shared national secret info with the US without any right to do so, without approval of the national assembly.
Also, what should be the scariest thing in the report:
"as on board as other journalists"audunw
“now”? At what point has there been good accountability of secret services? Given what we know of their history it has arguably been even worse before.
Perhaps some smaller countries have had secret services with an apparently clean record (would be hard to know for sure) at some point. But that could be more a matter of luck with who was in charge and hired at that point.
greatgib
It is new, for both secret services and politics, there use to be a principe of honor and respectability. Once exposed to bad behaviors, people where quitting by themselves or heads being chopped because of the public shame.
Now the people involved will keep their position till the end, doing whatever needed and whatever the cost to not move despite being convicted or close to it.
To me, this is new in the last decades.
Look at Nixon with the Watergate, nowadays, same with Trump, the guys will just say "and so what?" And things will continue like if it was nothing.
Same in UK, same in France, ...
bavell
It's crazy to me that some people think this is new.
perching_aix
Not sure why it would be, short of taking a cheap shot at people. Most people alive right now were born in the past 50 years [0], and won't be intimately familiar with history in so much detail, including me. It's niche knowledge, let's be honest. And people being conspiratorial and speculating on these is not the same as knowing about it with examples.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...
exe34
"it's worse now" would imply a positive belief about how things were better back in the halcyon days and things are worse now. Otherwise they would not have said it. Not knowing something isn't the same as knowing something that is not.
throwawayffffas
That's a clear failure of culture and leadership in their investigation, how they can't see that defending bad actors in their organization only sheds a shadow on their entire organization is beyond me.
The accused agent, has brought shame and dishonor on their group, he effectively betrayed the organization with his actions, the fact his colleagues chose to break the law to support him is beyond the pale. This is just a symptom of the old boys club that normalizes deviancy, covering up slip ups and inevitably to shit like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five
madaxe_again
But why would they care about there being a shadow on their organisation? They are immune to prosecution, will be funded no matter what, and if some politician, judge, or media organisation gets in their way they can simply neutralise them.
throwawayffffas
> They are immune to prosecution,
Are they really, that sounds improbable but I will believe you for the purposes of this discussion.
> will be funded no matter what, and if some politician, judge, or media organisation gets in their way they can simply neutralise them.
They are MI5, they are pretty much glorified police. Their funding is not guaranteed, their existence is not guaranteed, they could be replaced as an organization as whole, or piecemeal.
See what's happening to the FBI, this could happen to them. All it would take would be sufficient political momentum or a teflon politician.
A politician on whom nothing sticks.
aspenmayer
> But why would they care about there being a shadow on their organisation?
That which need not exist ought not cast a shadow, no? Drawing attention to themselves or their work is an own goal.
> Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
wiradikusuma
Reminds me of Black Bag (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bag).
Also, I can't help but feel depressed thinking about countries with less sophisticated justice systems. The absolute power an individual (they can be low rank!) gives me the shudders.
diggan
What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
Is it only because it would "look bad on MI5" if people like that worked there? Seems like such a trivial thing to immediately take a stand against and get rid of as soon as you notice it, rather than trying to hide
lmm
> What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
The continued loyalty of their other employees, a significant proportion of whom also enjoy using their MI5 role as a tool of coercion?
krisoft
The most “sane” explanation is that revealing his identity would compromise ongoing operations.
Something like someone who did know him as his secret identity would see his face, hear his association with MI5 and go “Wow Dude! Turns out ‘Niegel from Birmingham’ wasn’t really ‘Niegel’ at all! Didn’t he introduce us to Tommy as his old childhood friend? Maybe we shouldn’t trust Tommy anymore either. In fact why don’t we dangle Tommy from his ankles until he confesses?” So revealing that this miscreant is MI5 could put the life of other agents in danger too.
Or alternatively it can be about protecting some method. Like this terrible person introduced a bunch of criminals to a “secure chat” application, and you don’t want them to think it is not as secure as they think. (Obviously the names and particulars are wild guesses with no basis in reality.)
Not saying it is a great argument, but that is how these kind of agencies think sometimes.
johnisgood
Or perhaps that person knows too much, so it is better to swipe it under the rug. They will probably eventually attempt to disassociate themselves from him, through any means necessary.
actionfromafar
This seems like a bad strategy then. It brings more attention. Disappearing HIM seems the best strategy.
johnisgood
Yes, your last sentence is exactly what I was thinking of. They will probably end up doing that, one way or another.
antihero
> What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
Because people like that are useful to get inside organisations full of other evil people and prevent those organisations doing even worse things.
I hate it, but that is the logic.
curiousgal
Is it really that difficult to pretend to be a right-wing extremist?
taneq
I mean, could you? Convincingly? For the duration of a mission?
benmmurphy
probably the same thing that happened in the church or other organisations. bad people are able to convince others to do small things to help them, then once it surfaces what they are doing they are able to convince their enablers that their fates are tied together. from that point they are able to coerce their enablers into making bigger violations to protect them and and it becomes increasingly difficult to defect against them.
tsimionescu
The MI5, like every other secret service, wants their members to feel part of a brotherhood and to never ever divulge any secret to anyone outside the group. They also want their agents to be utterly loyal to their superiors, and to trust them that any despicable thing they may be asked to do is done in service of some greater good, or that at least it serves their own interests.
All of these things together make it so that the immediate reaction to any apparent wrongdoing is to close ranks, tell nothing to outsiders like the police or prosecutors until some boss decides otherwise. And that boss will of course weigh any such decision against the risk that any minute secret might be revealed in an investigation, that any agent might lose a tiny bit of confidence, etc - and likely will brush it off and apply some paltry administrative penalty then move on.
jackweirdy
He didn’t work there. He was a Neo-Nazi and member of Neo-Nazi organisations, divulging secrets.
By keeping him out of jail, Mi5 stood to gain more intelligence
wizzwizz4
The combination of being ready to forgive "good people", and ready to consider the enemies of "good people" your enemies too, can be horrifying – and yet, it feels incredibly righteous in the moment. (Related story: a lay preacher was a stalker, and the Bishop of Leicester helped retaliate against the victim. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3velqy9rzo)
fn-mote
What can I say, super instructive about what to expect when you start making inquiries about a state apparatus with lots of power. It also shows the need to make meticulous notes about everything and hold the state to telling the truth (as much as you can).
olelele
From what I can recall there has been similar things happening in Germany where police informers used the money gotten from informing on their (extreme right-wing) group to finance the group agenda. This is far from new. Secret services should be abolished in the name of democracy.
There was also the cases where at least one British undercover police officer infiltrated environmental organisations, and in the process fathered children under their assumed identity.
aspenmayer
Title needs edit.
Original title of article is:
> How MI5 piled falsehood on falsehood in court in the case of a spy who abused women
vessenes
Somewhat surprisingly, the current title does not seem to be editorializing or otherwise changing the thrust of the article; I don’t mind it staying as is
aspenmayer
At the time I posted, the title was truncated and did not include the direct object or object of the preposition, so it was title gore. It has since been edited by OP or by mods, so the issue is resolved in my view. I don't dispute that the title as you may have seen it is fine, now.
sofixa
As worrying as this story is, I find it interesting and consoling that the BBC, which is a state owned media, didn't hesitate and even strongly pushed to investigate and publish a story of abuse at another government agency. They weren't pressured to drop it, but kept going.
Goes strongly against the common narrative about "the mainstream media" and state media in particular (about them being complicit and useless).
v5v3
My friend that is how they work.
The BBC is not only a domestic tool, but a global tool for controlling the image of the British state and perceived lack of corruption.
When people start to question their behaviour, up pops this kinda counter. The judges are part of the same system.
sofixa
> The BBC is not only a domestic tool, but a global tool for controlling the image of the British state and perceived lack of corruption
And they control it by exposing that the MI5 is covering woman abusing pedophiles ?
v5v3
Yes.
These are the ancestors of the people who flooded China with Opium, and killed more people in India then Hitler did in his time.
Did you not see the lengths they went to over complying over the Chagos Islands? To be 'seen' as a lawful country.
wizzwizz4
The title's too long. Suggested: MI5 lied in court in case of spy who abused women.
GHanku
For anyone not familiar with the British State, it, along with its lieutenants such as the bbc, continually check the temperature of the nation. As it’s important that the docile middle classes who rarely interact with the justice system or question the media, remain naive. Along with those sold on the British Image around the world.
These legal cases are just theatre with professional actors.
‘Justice being seen to be done’
Trust in the bbc has been nosediving, and up pops this case of the BBC holding the state to account… and the judges giving appearance of impartiality…
brunker2
[dead]
This appears to be the related story about the agent: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61508520
Some truly crazy things in that article too. For example,
> X states he will kill her, leaves the room, and returns holding a machete ... The video cuts out amid her screams ... X was arrested, charged with assaulting Beth and appeared in court. However, while he was at court, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case.
How can there be a _video_ of a machete attack and the case is dropped?
> items of hers that had also been seized by counter terror officers were returned to a member of her family by a man who did not identify himself. The relative assumed the man was an associate of X. ... We have established the visitor was an MI5 officer. Material seized by a police investigation, under a police warrant, had been given to MI5.
Just read that last sentence!
I'm not a UK national, but tend to believe in them -- including MI5 -- being the 'good guys'. We need good guys in today's world, desperately. This kind of article is hard to read.