According to the BBC, the intelligence agent, a foreign citizen, had worked under several aliases for MI5 as a covert source, infiltrating extremist networks and feeding information back to them.
But one woman, who met the man on a dating site, told the broadcaster that he physically and psychologically abused her, and that he used his status to discourage her from reporting his behavior, citing “men in high places who always had his back.” The report did not indicate in which country this took place.
In a video shared by one of the accusers and broadcast by the BBC, a man standing over the person filming appears to be threatening her with a large knife. That episode, said the woman, identified by the pseudonym Beth in the BBC report, prompted the authorities to arrest him and charge him with assault. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the case, but the woman said the police had failed to properly pursue the case against him.
On Friday, legal representatives for her from the Center for Women’s Justice said she had filed a legal complaint to an independent tribunal responsible for complaints at the intelligence services, demanding that it look into MI5’s recruitment of the agent and “whether any steps were taken to address the clear risk of harm that he posed.”
Another woman, who met the man abroad while he was working for an unnamed foreign intelligence agency, also said that the agent had abused her, causing her to seek medical help and suffer a psychological breakdown.
Evidence that the BBC said it had viewed also suggested the agent was himself an extremist, including a private diary logged by police in which he wrote about killing Jews. He also commended several white supremacist mass murderers and said he intended to commit similar acts, according to one of the women.
“Given the BBC was able to establish that X had a history of violence and abuse, MI5 should, similarly, have been aware,” the investigation concluded.
