It comes after MI5 apologised unreservedly for providing “incorrect information” to the High Court in 2022 during the Attorney General’s bid to prevent the BBC from identifying an allegedly misogynistic neo-Nazi agent who reportedly attacked his girlfriend with a machete.
In 2022, then-Attorney General Suella Braverman went to the High Court to stop the BBC airing a programme that would name the agent who also allegedly abused another woman and is a covert human intelligence source.
An injunction was made in April 2022 to prevent the corporation disclosing information likely to identify the man, referred to only as “X”, though Mr Justice Chamberlain said the BBC could still air the programme and the key issues, without identifying him.
The corporation has also said MI5 changed its position once the BBC provided evidence, including a recording of a phone call in which X’s status was confirmed to the reporter.
At the hearing on Wednesday, the High Court heard that part of written evidence provided by MI5, reported to be from a deputy director in the Security Service, was false.
