Spy found dead in holdall ‘spoke of MI6 friction’

Gareth Williams, 31, hated the post-work drinking culture and “flash car competitions” at the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), his sister said.

He was due to move back to the West Country a week after his naked body was discovered padlocked inside a holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London, on August 23 2010.

The inquest into Mr Williams’s death began yesterday with evidence that Scotland Yard murder detectives were not able to speak to his MI6 colleagues directly.

Instead specialist officers from the Metropolitan Police’s SO15 counter-terrorism command had to carry out the interviews and produce anonymised statements.

Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, from the Met’s homicide and serious crime command, said police were not shown any internal inquiry by SIS into what happened to the brilliant codebreaker. But he stressed MI6 co-operated fully with Scotland Yard, adding he was not aware of MI5, MI6 or SO15 carrying out their own independent investigations into Mr Williams’s death.

Mr Williams’s sister, Ceri Subbe, told the inquest her brother, a mathematics prodigy who studied at Bangor University when he was just 16, had been excited when he began a three-year secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the Government listening station based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. But the keen fell runner and mountaineer missed the countryside and became disillusioned with the atmosphere at MI6’s Vauxhall Cross headquarters in London.

“He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office,” Mrs Subbe said.

She added: “The job was not quite what he expected. He encountered more red tape than he was comfortable with.”

In April 2010 he applied to return to GCHQ earlier than planned. MI6 “dragged their feet” over his request but eventually agreed he could go back to Cheltenham, starting September 1 2010.

But Mr Williams, of Anglesey, north Wales, failed to turn up for a meeting at MI6 on August 16 2010, the inquest heard.

Mrs Subbe said she discussed her brother’s absence with one of his colleagues.

“He is very conscientious. The person I spoke to agreed, and said Gareth was like a Swiss clock – very punctual, very efficient, and it was very unlike him not to attend a meeting.”

The discovery of the spy’s body curled up in a large North Face holdall at his top floor flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico, sparked a painstaking investigation and outlandish conspiracy theories.

Mrs Subbe was asked about £20,000 of women’s clothes found in her brother’s flat after his death, but said it was “not particularly” surprising and suggested they could have been a gift.

She told the inquest she did not believe Mr Williams would let a potential killer in his upmarket London home, adding: “I cannot emphasise enough his conscientiousness”.

The hearing heard from the policeman who was sent to the flat at about 5pm on August 23 to carry out a “welfare check” on Mr Williams who had not been seen for about 12 days.

Given access by a letting agent, Pc John Gallagher said he found a mobile phone and two SIM cards on a table in the living room, then spotted something else that caught his eye.

“My attention was drawn to a lady’s wig hanging on one of the corners of a chair,” he said.

In the bathroom, he noticed a bulging red North Face holdall in the bath with the zips padlocked together.

“At this point I am realising it is something serious and my concern was to not damage anything in a crime scene,” he said.

He lifted the bag up “by six or seven inches” when he noticed a smell. Pc Gallagher called for assistance. Detective Sergeant Paul Colgan was sent as back-up and after cutting into the bag, confirmed there was a body inside.

“At that point I knew we had some sort of a crime scene, so I ordered everybody out of the flat,” Pc Gallagher “Once we were out in the street, I called for other units to attend.”

Officers from Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command, known as SO15, were sent to the flat that night, the inquest heard.

Four intelligence agents will give evidence to the inquest anonymously after Coroner Fiona Wilcox said there was a real risk of harm to national security if they were exposed.

The inquest continues today.