Police defend findings after probe into spy-in-bag’s ‘accidental’ death

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said it was “beyond credibility” that he had “the wool pulled over my eyes” by MI6 and GCHQ, despite his team reaching entirely different conclusions to coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox, who said last year that it was likely the codebreaker was unlawfully killed.

Gareth Williams, 31, was found dead in the locked bag in the bath at his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23, 2010.

None of his DNA was found on the padlock on the bag and there were no palmprints on the rim of the bath. The heating had been left on in the flat, despite it being summer, and MI6 failed to raise the alarm about his disappearance for more than a week.

Mr Hewitt said: “I do not believe that I have had the wool pulled over my eyes. I believe that what we are dealing with is a tragic unexplained death.

“The Metropolitan Police’s position is that, on balance, it is a more probable conclusion that there was no other person present when Gareth died.”

However he admitted: “No evidence has been identified to establish the full circumstances of Gareth’s death beyond all reasonable doubt.”

Mr Williams’s family still believe he was unlawfully killed, and in a statement said they were “naturally disappointed” about the lack of conclusions in the case which adds to their grief.

They added: “We consider that on the basis of the facts known at present the coroner’s verdict accurately reflects the circumstances of Gareth’s death. “

In May last year at the end of the inquest, Dr Wilcox found that Mr Williams was probably killed and it “remained a legitimate line of inquiry” that the secret services may have been involved. She said she was sure a third party locked the code-breaker inside the red holdall in which his naked body was found, and that “the cause of his death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated”.

Pathologists said he would have suffocated within three minutes if he was alive when he got inside the 32-inch by 19-inch holdall.

Mr Williams worked for GCHQ but was on secondment to MI6 when he died.