A Briton accused of spying for China told the BBC he was an "ideal scapegoat" for British police and security services who wanted to highlight espionage threats from foreign states.
Chris Cash, a former parliamentary aide, forwarded us more than 6,000 messages revealing how a Chinese official sought information on sensitive political issues in the UK, including the battle for leadership of the Conservative Party in 2022, who will decide the next prime minister.
The messages reveal how Chris Berry, a friend of Cash's in China with whom he shared information, vividly described a "secret" meeting between Berry and a senior Chinese official.
Berry said he had been told that China was concerned about the possibility of a British MP it had sanctioned being promoted to a ministerial post.
The messages also reveal how Cash used his friend as a reference when checking his parliamentary pass, which was approved.
Like Cash, Berry was also accused of espionage. Both men have always maintained their innocence.
In his first interview since his acquittal, which sparked a political row over the government's failure to identify China as a "threat", Cash said he would "never do anything" to harm the UK's national security.
But he admits he was “unprofessional and naive” to send “gossip” text messages to his friend, whom he met in 2018 when they were both teaching English at a school in China.
End of Most read
Although the multitude of messages shows that he was discussing sensitive topics, there is no indication that Cash was paid by the Chinese Communist Party or that he was sympathetic to it.
End of content
Photo credit, Chris Cash
Verified information at your fingertips
Click here and subscribe!
End of WhatsApp Promotion
With the government previously saying Chinese spies were targeting British officials in politics, defense and business with increasingly sophisticated espionage operations, Cash believes his case was treated as a warning.
Berry declined to comment for this story, but at the time of his acquittal he said he denied any wrongdoing and that he had been "unfairly subjected to a media trial."
He said he provided reports to a Chinese company, whose clients he believed were seeking to develop business links with the UK, and that the reports contained no classified information and relied on public sources.
Cash returned to the UK in 2019, saying in his resignation message from his post in China that he felt "guilty for standing idly by and participating in a system that makes me uncomfortable".
He later became director of a small think tank run by China-skeptical Tory MPs at Westminster.
Meanwhile, Berry remained in China, writing reports for a large consulting firm that, like many Chinese companies, has ties to the government.
British security services have claimed that information from messages sent by the men via the encrypted messaging app Signal between January 2022 and March 2023 was passed to people linked to the Chinese state.
The attorney general of England and Wales said the case collapsed last fall because government officials could not argue that China had been classified as an "enemy" at the time.
This sparked accusations of British political interference aimed at appeasing the Chinese government.
China has previously called the spying allegations “pure fabrication and malicious slander.”
“A psychological chess game”
The most notable part of the messages given to the BBC concerns Berry's account of his meeting, in the summer of 2022, with a senior Chinese official who wanted "more detailed cooperation".
In voice notes, Berry explains how previously work colleagues had told him that the civil servant's interest had been piqued by reports he had written, which included details of Britain's foreign policy approach to China.
In the voice notes, Berry explains that he was initially dismayed, but then decided: "I thought it would be interesting to go anyway... without really intending to do anything." »
Berry tells Cash that he was taken to a government-owned villa on a large estate.
The experience “felt like a psychological chess game” and “like a test,” says Berry.
He kept his hands under the table while tea was served: “I didn't want my nervousness to show. I first checked if my hands were shaking, then I drank the tea. »
Berry describes how the senior Chinese official asked, through an interpreter, "the current situation in the UK, and in particular the question of the leadership of the Conservative Party".
At that time, Boris Johnson had just resigned as British Prime Minister, and a battle for leadership of the Conservative Party was underway, which Liz Truss would win.
Berry says that he tried, in a joking tone, to ask his host which candidate China wanted, but that the interpreter did not translate his question.
“And then the main guy shakes my hand like it’s time to go,” Berry tells Cash.
After receiving the voicemails, Cash texted back the next day: "You, my friend, have just been captured by the elite," before adding: "You are now in espionage territory."
In numerous news reports, these precise messages, previously disclosed in a government witness statement, were presented as smoking gun – proof that Cash knew his friend was passing information to the Chinese state.
But Cash insists it was a “tongue-in-cheek joke” because he knew his friend was “a strong critic of the Chinese Communist Party.”
The next morning, he joked that Berry was spying for the United Kingdom and that he might get in trouble with Chinese authorities, he said. Cash then texted: “Keep him on good terms… We might need you.” »
“I didn't believe he was knowingly spying on the UK through me,” says Cash. “I trusted my friend… I would have liked to have detected the danger earlier, spotted it and cut off all contact. »
“More important than I thought”
So who was this mysterious official that Berry had met?
“I found out who this guy is,” Berry texted Cash a few hours later. “This is more important than I thought. »
Berry posted a link to the Wikipedia page of Cai Qi, who was one of China's most influential politicians at the time and is now President Xi Jinping's de facto chief of staff.
Photo credit, AFP via Getty Images
It is unknown whether Berry correctly identified his host. He has since denied meeting anyone as high-ranking as Cai Qi.
What is indisputable is that he thought he had met a high-ranking person within the Chinese political system.
For Chris Cash, this unusual encounter did not cause concern. Asked by the BBC why there was no reaction, Cash said: “Because I didn't really pay attention to it. »
We ask Cash why his friend would have been called to such a meeting. “Strange things are happening in China… you know, we often rubbed shoulders with quite important members of the Chinese Communist Party,” he explains to us.
Asked if he had read the Wikipedia link at the time, Cash said he "skimmed" it, adding that he was described as a judge and provincial official. “I just thought it was a strange encounter with a guy who had been interested in me,” he says.
Six months later, Berry said in text messages that “off the record” he had “pretty reliable sources” that China was considering lifting sanctions against Tom Tugendhat, one of the Conservative MPs at the China Research Group, where Cash worked.
Berry wrote that this would happen as long as the West “continues to show signs of willingness to work together.”
The Chinese believed it would be "extremely embarrassing" for Tugendhat to become prime minister or foreign secretary while under Chinese sanctions, Berry said.
At the time of the meeting, in the summer of 2022, Tugendhat, a China skeptic, was seen as a potential candidate to succeed Boris Johnson, or to become UK foreign minister.
He was actually appointed security minister by Liz Truss, and Beijing lifted sanctions against him in January 2026.
Was Cash concerned that Berry appeared to be feeding him information about Chinese foreign policy?
Cash says he assumed Berry heard about it “through word of mouth within his company,” which did business with the United Kingdom.
He claims to have never doubted the reliability of his friend, to the point of having even cited Berry as a reference on his application for a security badge for the Palace of Westminster.
The pass was granted and, two weeks before their arrest in early 2023, Cash invited Berry to lunch at Parliament House.
This was to be their last face-to-face conversation.
“Total shock”
Cash was in bed at 6:45 one morning in March when he was awakened by slamming car doors, he said. Seconds later, four British counter-terrorism agents burst into his room at his parents' home in Edinburgh.
“They ordered me to stand up straight and not touch anything, then told me I was under arrest for violating the Official Secrets Act,” Cash said.
“I was in complete shock… I was shaking… My mother was hysterical. »
Cash says the officers dressed him in the dirty clothes he was wearing that weekend, handcuffed him and took him by force to an unmarked police car. He was then taken to London.
Chris Berry was also arrested the same day.
It is still unclear how, when and why the British security services became interested in the exchanges between the two friends.
But they probably learned a lot more about their relationship when Berry was stopped and questioned by counter-terrorism officers at Heathrow Airport.
His laptop and phone were stolen – this may have allowed his Signal conversations to be downloaded.
Berry then messaged Cash about it.
Cash says this didn't alarm him: "I thought it was quite normal... for someone who had been to China." »
As the investigation progressed, it became clear that authorities believed Cash and Berry had participated in an informal, but dangerous, exchange of information that was "damaging to the security and interests of the United Kingdom."
The allegations were based on 6,273 messages exchanged between the two people – the same ones that Cash has now released to the BBC. Cash's lawyer confirmed to the BBC their authenticity.
They cover a period during which Cash had joined the China Research Group (CRG), founded by Tugendhat and fellow Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, and during which Berry worked for a Chinese company called Strong, where part of his work involved writing political and economic reports for clients.
According to court documents, Berry wrote 34 reports for a man linked to Chinese intelligence, relaying information passed on by Cash. Strong did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
The CRG office was across the Thames from Westminster, but Cash held regular meetings at Parliament. Cash did not have a government security clearance and there is no evidence he had access to classified documents.
Despite the distance between them, the two friends remained in close contact, often messaging each other daily.
Messages reviewed by the BBC show they discussed topics including sanctions on China, technology company Huawei, human rights, Hong Kong, Taiwan and British foreign policy.
Cash says he used the Signal app for almost all of his contact with people in China – “mostly to protect them” – because, he said, discussing the government “could lead to trouble”. He and Berry did not use the app's ephemeral messages feature.
Much of the information they discussed was publicly available, claims Cash, who provided the BBC with a detailed table with links and references to prove it.
But he sometimes shared with Berry his impressions following private meetings and discussions at Westminster. Twelve times in these messages, he specified that certain information was “confidential” or “very confidential” before transmitting it.
Cash says it was just a matter of “enthusiastically sharing the things I was doing with him at work.”
One post recounted comments allegedly made privately by the then British Ambassador to China, Dame Caroline Wilson, during a discussion with the CRG about her work on China's influence on British universities.
Cash also sent Berry messages containing unverified rumors about the sex lives of two British ministers. There is no evidence that Berry passed this information on to his Chinese colleagues.
Cash says he viewed these exchanges as routine political discussions. “We weren’t working with classified information,” he says.
Acquitted and “defamed”
Cash's lawyer told him that the police investigation would die down after six months and that he could soon return to a normal life.
But in September 2023, six months after the arrests, the matter was made public when the Sunday Times broke the story of an anonymous "spy" who had been arrested in Parliament.
Cash remembers a train journey where, around him, the other passengers read the front page of the newspaper: "'Chinese Spy' Arrested in the House of Commons." He said: “I wanted the world to devour me. »
Less than 24 hours later, his name and photo were published in the press, and both men were subsequently charged with espionage.
In September of the following year, just weeks before their trial was set to begin, Cash received an unexpected call from his lawyer.
“Are you sitting?” » he asked Cash. “They dropped all charges. »
His lawyers requested a court hearing for the prosecution to formally acknowledge that they would present no evidence, but at the Old Bailey, Cash, freshly exonerated, struggled to find anyone interested in his story.
During each of his previous appearances, he had been attacked by the crowd, but the press had not been informed of this hearing.
Eventually, his team found a lone BBC reporter. “I said what I had to say at the Old Bailey. And it was a really powerful moment. I felt like I could finally turn the page. »
It wouldn't be that simple.
Across town, Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle was furious. “It was this Parliament that was spied on,” he declared. “It was the offices of deputies that were infiltrated. »
There would be days of political debate and a heated session of questions for the Prime Minister, during which Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch would declare: “This all smacks of a cover-up. »
“I was acquitted in court, but then I was vilified in Parliament,” says Cash. “It felt like I had been convicted all over again in the court of public opinion, by people I had worked with and trusted, and it was horrible. »
Today, Cash's life is unrecognizable. He lost his dream job, his romantic relationship, and his best friend from college.
“We talked about being witnesses to each other,” Cash says. Yet when his friend got married last year, Cash wasn't even invited.
He is no longer in contact with Berry either.
“I've been applying for basic administrative jobs and I've been struggling lately,” Cash says.
“I am angry and upset by the way things turned out, and I feel disappointed. »
But when asked about it, Cash stopped short of saying he feels betrayed by Berry. Does he think his friend was spying for the Chinese government?
“He will have to have the opportunity to defend himself in court,” Cash responds. “I think it would be inappropriate and hypocritical for me to speculate, given the speculation I have been subjected to. But we are no longer friends. »
Berry declined to comment for this story, but at the time of his acquittal he said his reports "covered economic and commercial issues widely debated in the United Kingdom at the time and were based on information freely available to the public."
Just like his former friend, Chris Cash is innocent in the eyes of the law, but his reputation has undoubtedly been ruined.
In Parliament, many people still consider them spies. And the revelation of new messages exchanged between these former friends could reignite the debate on their actions.
“It was a grueling ordeal,” says Cash. “But I'm basically a positive person...I'm optimistic about the future. »
Contact us – politicsinvestigations@bbc.co.uk
We used AI to help translate this article, originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
Discover more
Look!
End of Look!
