By Daily Mail Comment
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The inquest into Gareth Williams â€" the MI6 code breaker now known as the ‘spy in the bag’ â€" raised many deeply disturbing questions.
Why, given the hugely sensitive nature of Mr Williams’ job, did the intelligence service wait eight days to inform the police he was missing from work?
For what reason did MI6 withhold potentially crucial evidence â€" including nine computer memory sticks â€" from police investigating his possible murder?
Investigation: The death of spy Gareth Williams has been one of the most debated deaths in recent history
Crime scene? The Pimlico flat where Mr Williams was found dead locked inside a North Face holdall in the bath
Did the absence of forensic evidence, save for a tiny amount of DNA, suggest his flat had been professionally ‘cleaned’?
In delivering her verdict on this extraordinary case yesterday, Dr Fiona Wilcox said that most of the fundamental questions of how Mr Williams died remained, regrettably, ‘unanswered’.
Nevertheless, the coroner did state that, ‘on the balance of probabilities’, Mr Williams had been unlawfully killed.
She was also able to deliver, in her public judgment, the damning observation that MI6 had not always been helpful in its approach to the investigation.
The coroner added that, while the evidence did not prove suggestions that Mr Williams died at the hands of MI6, ‘it is still a legitimate line of inquiry’.
Of course, the lack of a conclusive verdict is unsatisfactory â€" not least for the dead man’s family, who fear he was killed by what they describe as a specialist ‘in the dark arts of the secret services’.
They are unlikely ever to forgive MI6 for not bothering to report Mr Williams missing for a week â€" by which time it was not possible for pathologists to establish if, for example, he had been poisoned.
But it is testament to Britain’s legal system that an inquest has at least endeavoured to hold the authorities to account in public.
As the Mail’s ‘No To Secret Courts’ campaign has highlig hted, Ministers want chilling powers to hold such inquests in camera in the future. The hugely troubling case of ‘the spy in the bag’ is yet another reason why their plans must be fiercely resisted.
The mystery may not yet have been solved â€" but to have avoided publicly asking the questions would have been a terrible betrayal of his family, his service to the public and Britain’s treasured principle of open justice.
Put a plug in it!
We may have just endured the wettest April in 100 years, but that hasn’t stopped politicians from lecturing us on the need to ration water if we are not to have a permanent hosepipe ban.
A Lords committee says that prices should be increased to stop people taking too many baths or watering gardens.
Meanwhile, Caroline Spelman bizarrely suggests houses should be re-designed so they can start reusing bath water.
Despite record breaking rain this month, MP's continue to stress we are in drought, with the Environment Secretary suggesting hoses should be redesigned
How refreshing it would be if the hapless Environment Secretary instead focused on the real villains â€" profligate water firms that allow a quarter of the nation’s treated drinking water to leak from their pipes before it ever reaches a tap.
If they had invested in pipes and developed reservoirs (instead of selling them off) perhaps we wouldn’t be in the preposterous predicament of being both flooded and short of water.
Paying for the crash
Since the financial crash in 2008, banks have extracted £100billion more from desperately struggling firms than they have given out in loans.
As we reveal today, they are also hammering customers with 19.52 per cent interest rates on authorised overdrafts.
The banks may have caused the crash. But, unforgivably, they are making damn certain that it’s somebody else who pays the bill. Will they ever â€" ever â€" get it?
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My question about pen-knives was asked because there is mention of one in the Spy story but I forgot to say so. What a silly Billy I am :(
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Boy is there one big skeleton waiting to fall out of this wardrobe.
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Something has occurred to me and it is this: How many of you own a pen-knife? I haven't had one since I was a boy of about 11 or 12. Why, in this modern world, would a person need one? Or is it just me, and in reality everyone has one? I would really like to know.
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The delivery of clean water is a necessity of life and should never have been privatized.the moment it was given to private companies it became a product no different, to coke or chocolate. If the water companies ban the use of hose pipes then we have lost part of our service and should have a refund of our bill. its up to the shareholders to take the pain. This is how private companies work. when the risk to your investment is removed it just becomes a licence to print money.(See Banking) When you buy shares in a water company are betting that it will rain, when it don't you loose,
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