The Attorney General has won a bid to block the broadcast of a BBC programme that could identify a "dangerous extremist and misogynist" who is allegedly an informant for MI5.
Suella Braverman sought the injunction to block a planned broadcast that would identify the man, referred to throughout as X. He argued that identifying the man would damage national security and create "a real and immediate risk of serious or life-threatening harm" to him.
It means the BBC can still run their programme but they must not identify the alleged informant. In a ruling on Thursday (April 7) Mr Justice Chamberlain said: “In my judgment, the Attorney is more likely than not to succeed at trial in establishing that the balance of public and private interests favours the grant of relief prohibiting the BBC from disclosing X’s name and image.”
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The judge added: "The information about X’s identity, in the context of the allegation that he is a Chis [covert human intelligence source] who works or worked for MI5, is – as the BBC accepts – confidential."
He added: “The Attorney has satisfied me that, if it were to become publicly or widely known, there would be a real and immediate risk that X would be killed or seriously injured.
“In order to address that risk, extensive protective measures would have to be, and would be, taken.
“As a result of those measures, public disclosure of X’s identity would have no significant protective effect on women considering entering into a relationship or liaison with X.
“Whilst including X’s name and image would make the BBC’s story more engaging and potentially more attractive to a wider audience, this would come at the expense of material damage to the effectiveness of the work of the security and intelligence agencies and, therefore, the national security of the UK.”
Mr Justice Chamberlain added: “The BBC will still be able to convey what it regards as the core elements of its story, including the allegation that X abused his Chis status and the allegation that MI5 is at fault for using or continuing to use him as a Chis.
“The Government will be heavily constrained in how it can respond to the latter allegation, but the constraints can be explained.
“The relief I grant will constitute a significant interference with the BBC’s right to freedom of expression and the correlative right of the public to receive the information the BBC wishes to convey.
“However, it will not prevent the BBC from making the allegations central to its story, nor from drawing attention to what it contends are the important issues of public concern to which it gives rise.”
The BBC said in a statement after the ruling that the result did not prevent it from reporting "key elements" of its story once restrictions are determined.
A spokesperson for the broadcaster said: “This is not the judgment we had hoped for, but it is important to understand what it does and does not mean.
“While the judgment prevents the BBC from identifying X, by showing his picture or naming him, it does not prevent the BBC from reporting key elements of the story, which we will do once the precise restrictions are determined.
“We expect these restrictions to be clarified next week.”
The BBC spokesperson added: “It is important to understand why the BBC believes this to be such important journalism.
“We fought the case to try to tell as fully as possible two women’s stories and their experiences with X – his abuse of them and his use of his status as an MI5 intelligence source to coerce and terrify one of them – behaviour we say MI5 should have known about and that should have caused them to stop working with X.
“This is because we firmly believe these are matters of the highest public interest – the issues of coercive control of women, male abuse of power and the failure of state institutions to address these problems.
“The BBC also believed identifying X was appropriate because we – and more importantly two separate women, who both experienced abuse at his hands and who have never met each other – believe he is a danger to women and identifying him could warn women considering, or currently in, a relationship with him.”
The BBC added that it "does not fully know" why the court decided that identifying the alleged agent would present a risk to his safety and national security. The spokesperson added: "In the end, the court has decided that identifying X presents risks to his safety and national security.
“The BBC does not fully know the reasons why and nor will the public. This is due to the highly unusual fact that a significant proportion of the evidence in this case was heard in a closed hearing, which even the BBC as a party was not permitted to attend.
“While we had ‘special advocates’ representing our interests in those closed proceedings, we are not able to know anything about the secret hearing.
“The reasons the BBC is not able to identify X are largely in the closed judgment, which we cannot inspect.
“The secret procedures used in cases like this also constrain what the judge is able to say about his decision in the public judgment.
“They are a significant departure from the principles of open and natural justice, as the judge himself states.”
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