‘PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR’

MI5 Agent Accused of Machete Attack, Extremism

The BBC said it could not name the MI5 agent due to an “unprecedented legal battle” with the government.

An MI5 agent is accused of using his connections in the intelligence community to get away with brutalizing a former girlfriend. The BBC said in a report published Thursday that it could not name the MI5 agent—whom it identified as a “foreign national”—due to an “unprecedented legal battle” with the British government. However, the man’s former partner alleged he had sexually assaulted her, physically and psychologically abused her, and at one point even tried to attack her with a machete. “There was so much psychological terror from him to me, that ultimately culminated in me having a breakdown, because I was so afraid of everything—because of how he’d made me think, the people that he was involved with, and the people who he worked for,” the woman, identified only as Beth, told the BBC. She alleged that he’d forced her to watch videos of executions and murders, telling her he worked as a paid informant tasked with infiltrating extremist networks. When she wanted to report his alleged abuse, she said, she was reminded that he “had men in high places who always had his back, who would intervene and who would actively kill me, if I spoke out.” Though the unnamed spy was reportedly arrested after attacking Beth with a machete, the BBC reports that the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence, despite the woman having video footage on her phone. According to the report, the man was also under scrutiny by counter-terrorism investigators after he was found with Nazi paraphernalia and a diary entry about killing “Jews,” but he left the country soon after.