MPs, aides and journalists who knew the parliamentary aide at the heart of the China spying allegations describe a young man eager to engage with politicians on the subject of Beijing during his time at Westminster.
The former researcher, who has not been named by police, is described as in his 20s. He held a parliamentary pass, which requires the sponsorship of an MP, giving him relatively unfettered access to Westminster’s rambling parliamentary estate.
During a couple of years in and around the Commons he predominately moved in Conservative circles, and had links to Tom Tugendhat then Alicia Kearns, before his arrest in March, accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act.
Tugendhat has been security minister since for the past year, and is not thought to have been associated with the researcher during his time in government, while Kearns chairs the backbench foreign affairs select committee.
Both MPs have said little once news of the arrest was made public over the weekend. On Saturday, Kearns said she could not comment while the work of MI5, the police and prosecutors was continuing.
Kearns’s point was reinforced by the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, on Monday, arguing that it was an “ongoing, sensitive investigation” and urged MPs not to discuss the case in the house. It was a demand to which they acceded in the debates that followed.
Backbenchers such as Tugendhat, as he was at the time, and Kearns would have been very unlikely to have handled top secret or other classified information that is the heart of the business of government.
But aides such as theirs do form part of the dense network of news and gossip around Westminster, knowledgable about which MPs are on the up or down, who is close to whom and the underlying informal issues that are the business of politics.
Noa Hoffman, a political reporter with the Sun, wrote on Monday that she had been matched with him on the Hinge dating app, describing him as “attractive, clearly into sports and had a thriving social life”. But, despite trying to arrange a date, they never managed to meet up.
But there is also evidence of attempted contact with Labour. Before the researcher was arrested, Westminster sources said, he also met a Labour adviser to discuss the opposition party’s stance on China.
The Guardian understands the aide, educated in Britain, also spent a couple of years in China but he has no family links to the country, making allegations of his acting for Beijing all the more unusual.
On Monday, he broke his silence, and argued in a statement released through his lawyers, a leading human rights firm, that he was “forced to respond to the media accusations that I am a ‘Chinese spy’” and insisted “I am completely innocent”.
“I have spent my career to date trying to educate others about the challenge and threats presented by the Chinese Communist party. To do what has been claimed against me in extravagant news reporting would be against everything I stand for,” he added, without revealing his name.
It will be for police and prosecutors to determine what happens next. For now, the researcher remains on police bail until an unspecified date in early October, with officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, which has responsibility for espionage-related offences, taking the lead.
