The Big Breach (54 page)

`Yes,' Betty hesitated for a moment before continuing. `They told me that you were a paedophile and warned me to keep you away from my daughter.'

I left Betty's office scarcely able to contain my despair and anger at the depths to which MI6 seemed prepared to stoop in order to wreck my chances of settling anywhere. For although Betty realised immediately what was going on, Riva del Garda is a small town and I knew that she would not have been the only person whom MI6's hired goons approached. I soon detected hostility from other acquaintances who had presumably been fed the same line, then after a month or two my new landlady got cold feet and told me to leave my new flat. Once again I was without a home, and yet MI6 still had not finished with me.

Another trip to Milan was necessary, but more surveillance immediately appeared, this time a white Volkswagon Polo. The same fat bloke in a red vest was behind the wheel, with a long-haired, scruffy companion alongside. This time they made no pretence at discretion and sat glued to my bumper. If I stopped in an
autostrada
lay-by to check my map, they stopped right behind me. On the roads leading into Milan, if I indicated left, but turned right, they did the same. I dived on to a roundabout near the central station in the city centre and drove around it, indicating at every turn-off, but swerving back on at the last moment. They did the same, right on my bumper. I drove around again, this time a bit faster. They did the same, the narrow tyres on their Polo squealing. I accelerated, my BMW gripped firmly and I pulled away a car length from them. Once more around the roundabout and I had pulled out half a lap lead on him. Two more sinister circles and I was right on his tail. The fat bloke was grimacing in his rear view mirror, unsure how to react, and his companion was shouting down his mobile phone for advice from his controller. I flashed my lights and gave them a friendly wave. `Where will this end?' I thought to myself, unsure whether the story was farce or tragedy.

EPILOGUE

MI6 have spent a substantial amount of British taxpayers' money on preventing me from taking them to an employment tribunal or informing the public of the toll that their lack of accountability has had on my life - a toll that mirrors the harm the unaccountable agency inflicts on other individuals whose civil liberties are violated. MI6 prosecuted and imprisoned me under laws which on 20 July 2000 were scathingly condemned by a UN report into Britain's human rights record. They took expensive injunctions out against me in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, the USA and New Zealand, all in disregard for laws governing freedom of speech, guessing correctly that I did not have the funds to appeal through the courts. They have had me arrested or detained a total of 11 times in the UK, France, New Zealand, the USA, Switzerland, Germany, Monaco and Italy and have used these detentions as excuses to confiscate valuable personal property which has not been returned, and which Special Branch have spent thousands of man-hours examining. MI6 senior managers have used their leverage with friendly intelligence services to have me banned from France, the USA, Switzerland and Australia, again guessing correctly that I would have limited funds to appeal.

MI6 have never justified to the government why this expenditure is necessary; MI6 is not accountable so it need not do so. They need only make a vague claim that my attempts to seek an employment tribunal `damage national security' and other government agencies or foreign intelligence services spring to their assistance. No attempt is ever made to substantiate their claim, or explain exactly how `national security' has been damaged (though ironically, when one of their officers recently got drunk in a tapas bar and lost his laptop, and another fell asleep on a train and mislaid his briefcase, on both occasions they gravely assured the nation that the loss of secret documents had `not in any way prejudiced national security').

MI6's actions against me, purportedly to safeguard `national security', have had the opposite effect. By using their contacts with foreign intelligence services to pursue me so relentlessly, they have notified them as to my whereabouts. Several foreign services have promptly taken advantage of my captivity or dislocation to ask me to reveal information about MI6 to them. MI6 have thereby confirmed that they regard it as more important to harass, imprison or inconvenience me than to keep secret whatever it is that I am supposed to know.

MI6 cannot justify all this expenditure for any genuine motive to protect national security. During the cold war, the stakes were high enough that perhaps they could make a legitimate case for the prerogative for absolute security transcending the rights and freedoms of individuals. But the cold war has been over for two decades. MI6 has moved into new pastures, mainly nuclear and biological weapon proliferation, organised crime, money-laundering and drug-trafficking. All these are sources of possible danger to Britain, but they are problems that have been efficiently dealt with for years by the police, the customs service and open diplomacy. MI6 has attempted to grab these new areas from other perfectly competent government agencies, but in doing so has not shed its cold war culture. MI6 managers have retained all the baggage that accompanies excessive secrecy and lack of accountability: inefficiency, poor decision making, arrogant management. They have got away with it because, despite all their cock-ups over the years, MI6 is still eulogised by powerful parts of British society and wields disproportionate power in Whitehall. The reason that MI6 has spent so much money suppressing this book is not because it contains anything damaging, but because they fear it may undermine their quasi-mythical status.

Through my lawyers, Warren Templeton in New Zealand, Anne-Sophie Levy in France, John Wadham and latterly Madeleine Abas in the UK, I have attempted to negotiate with MI6 throughout this pyrrhic battle. All I have ever asked for is an independent judgement on the legality and fairness of my dismissal. MI6 could have diffused this dispute at any time over the past five years by picking up a phone and opening an honest dialogue to achieve this basic human right. Instead, they have teased and played me on a line, encouraging me to negotiate, not with any genuine intention of finding a solution, but simply and cynically as a means to gather intelligence on my intentions and whereabouts. They have then used this information, which I have given them in good faith, to persuade foreign police forces to take punitive actions against me or confiscate my possessions.

All MI6 has accomplished with its expensive strategy is to drive me into a corner, forcing me to fight back. They have forced me to flee from the UK and live abroad, then obliged me to hop from one country to another, never living at the same address for more than a few months. They have made it difficult for me to get fulfilling employment and have actively sought to disrupt my career plans. This ceaseless harassment has ironically left me with no choice except to publish this book. Once my story is in the open, MI6 will find it difficult to exaggerate the threat posed by me and thereby persuade allied police and intelligence services to act against a `terrorist'. I hope that it may put an end to the dispute and allow me to move forward in life.

I chose to publish first on the Internet, because it is the only means to circumvent MI6's gagging orders or other persuasive methods. Shortly after I sent my manuscript to a UK publisher, Fourth Estate, their premises were raided by special branch police and their computers confiscated. Fourth Estate declined to publish this book and other UK publishers were put on notice that they would face serious legal and illegal action if they attempted to do so. An American publisher I approached quickly received a menacing visit by the FBI, acting on behalf of MI6, and was persuaded to drop the project. The FBI then recruited an American literary agent to gather intelligence on my intentions and waste my time and money. Publishers I spoke to in Australia and New Zealand also received threatening visits from their respective security services. Even the Swiss literary agent who initially brokered a publishing deal was hit by a swingeing injunction and was forced to withdraw his services. I have also offered on three occasions to submit the manuscript of this book for vetting but MI6 has merely responded with menacing letters threatening me with imprisonment or used my admission of having a text as justification to confiscate my computers.

This waste of time, money and resources would have been avoided in the first instance if MI6 were properly accountable to the government. The belief amongst senior MI6 officers that they are above the law, encapsulated in the head of personnel's claim that `nobody can tell the Chief what to do', was the cause of this debacle. If the Chief were accountable, he would have ensured that personnel officers were trained in employment law and that professional personnel management practices were in place within the service. (Ironically, the
Spycatcher
debacle of the 1980s was also caused by shoddy personnel management; MI5 refused to allow Peter Wright to transfer pension credits from his previous employment in another branch of the civil service, resulting in his disaffection.) The way to stop a repeat of similar farces in the future is not to spend large amounts of public money wielding a big stick to punish miscreants, but to prevent disputes in the first place by implementing sympathetic and fair management practices. This will only happen when the Chief, and the entire service, is really accountable to democratically elected government.

A step towards greater democratic accountability was taken when the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, chaired by Tom King MP, was given limited powers to examine the activities of the intelligence services. But its role remains entirely advisory, and attempts by King to extend its powers have been resisted by MI6, who pay only lip service to his recommendations. In his 1998 annual report to the Prime Minister, amongst several other criticisms of MI6, King made an indirect reference to me, writing, `recent experiences on both sides of the Atlantic underline the importance of having a range of effective measures for dealing with staff problems as they arise'. King was also referring to the case of Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer who was peremptorily sacked, then forced to seek refuge in Moscow when his former employer vindictively stifled his protests at his treatment. But MI6 paid no attention to King's recommendation, did not learn from the CIA's mistake and continued to employ the same counterproductive tactics against me throughout 1999. In his 1999 report, Mr King repeated more strongly his recommendation, made a direct reference to me, and wrote in bold text, `We strongly support the right to have access to an employment tribunal.' Still MI6 paid no attention to this criticism, or many of his other recommendations, and refused to grant me a tribunal. MI6 will continue to ignore King's recommendations until there is a radical shake-up of the Official Secrets Act and the way the intelligence services are run.

The Official Secrets Act should be abolished immediately and replaced with a Freedom of Information Act, similar to the laws that exist in Australia and New Zealand. `National Security' should be clearly defined in the act. The Chiefs of both MI5 and MI6 should be replaced by a single Intelligence Tsar from outside the services who is not indoctrinated with the existing cover-up secrecy culture, and who is fully answerable to a Parliamentary Select Committee. Only then will there be full democratic control over the intelligence services. The new head should moreover oversee the merging of the two services into a single entity, perhaps renamed the United Kingdom Security and Intelligence Service. Expensively maintaining separate overseas and domestic intelligence services makes no more sense than having separate health services for men and women.

National security will not in any way be compromised by the merging of the two services into a single accountable entity - similar procedures work fine in the USA, Canada and New Zealand - and indeed security will be greatly enhanced as an answerable service will rapidly review its management procedures and there will be no repeat of the numerous intelligence fiascos which the country has suffered in the past five years.

I am not sure how MI6 will react when this book is published. I hope that they will react positively by reforming their obvious shortcomings to ensure that no other employee is driven down the same route. Unfortunately, past experience suggests that they will not be so prudent. In reality, their vindictive efforts to stop me telling this story are not to protect anything that is still sensitive - I left MI6 six years ago, and even then knew nothing of major sensitivity - but just to cover up exposure of their unreasonable mismanagement of my dismissal and their incompetent attempts to stop me having a fair hearing. Every time they have taken a punitive action against me, they have been forced to dig yet deeper to cover up each new piece of unreasonable vindictiveness.

Yet MI6 could save themselves all these efforts, legal battles and the British taxpayer considerable expense if they were to accept this simple pledge from me. I will come back to the UK voluntarily, hand over to charity all my personal profits from this book, accept whatever legal charges MI6 wish to bring against me, and if necessary go to prison again, on one simple condition: that I first be allowed to take them to an employment tribunal. If MI6 were a noble and fair organisation, genuinely interested in protecting national security and accountable for the public money that they spend, then they would accept this offer with alacrity. But having both worked for, and been targeted by, them for nearly a decade, I doubt that they will.