MI6: Decorated

A spy has been exposed by his wife over a gay sex scandal, The Telegraph can disclose.

The case was raised in a military divorce heard in court recently, involving an intelligence officer in an Army unit that targets al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

The scandal emerged after the officer’s wife discovered he was having one-off sexual liaisons with men he met near his Army base and close to the headquarters of MI6 in south London.

The woman is divorcing him but reported his activities to military commanders as she feared he had broken his security clearance and would be vulnerable to blackmail by hostile intelligence services...

Telegraph.
 
They weren't actually bumming in full view of everyone, btw, nor was he really a 'spy'.

I presume 'decorated' means 'like a builder's radio' but am awaiting confirmation.

Gareth Williams: No New Death Evidence Shock

THE MI6 spy whose body was found in a bag worked undercover as a woman, an expert claims.

It would explain why Gareth Williams, 31, had £20,000 worth of ladies’ designer clothes and shoes and a red wig at his home.

The theory also answers why his neighbours saw only a woman coming and going to his flat.

Forensic investigator Peter Faulding, who has probed the mystery death, said: “The key question never asked was, ‘Were these clothes used for his job?’. I am certain they were.”

Peter claims the expensive items were bought by Williams’ bosses.

He added: “I’m certain he made a very convincing female. He was slim, with feminine features. And as a cyclist he shaved his legs.”

It has been suspected the clothes were part of a secret lifestyle.

The Sun On Sunday.

Maybe he did - though there's CCTV footge of him entering his flat rather obviously not in drag (and I can't recall this 'neighbours saw only a woman...' claim before) - but what on earth would this tell us about how he died?

Gareth Williams: Startling New Lack Of Evidence!

The Sun.

How many times?

It's only the 'perfect murder' in that there is not a shred of evidence that Williams was murdered.

Nor any motive any rational non-tinfoil-hat-wearing person would believe.

There's absolutely no evidence Lord Lucan was abducted by aliens either, does that mean it's the 'perfect alien abduction'?

He most likely just fancied getting off by getting in a sports bag but couldn't get out again.

End of.

Gareth Williams: Case Closed

To the Telegraph - always the go-to paper for delightfully detailed and lurid reporting of coroners' reports, autopsies, murders and the like.
Today we learn; "MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams probably locked himself into the sports bag where his naked body was found and was not the victim of a hit by the security services, Scotland Yard has found after conducting a review of the case."
HUH!!?
Mind = blown!
So who's been advancing loads of loopy conspiracy theories and zombie rumours (the ones that refuse to die) ever since poor Gareth was found dead in August 2010?
Only every single sodding newspaper in the UK.
And which maverick lone wolf has consistently - nay manfully - said these all sounded like a load of balls and doggedly pursued the truth, like some modern day Woodward and Bernstein.
Only Fagburn!
It seemed pretty clear that Gareth Williams was, ahem, "enjoying himself in an unusual way" and that no-one else was involved.
Let's call it Onan's Law - a single man living alone will find ever more inventive ways of getting his rocks off.
I know I keep saying this, but it would save so much time if everyone just listened to me in the first place.
Good day.

Update: Then rather bafflingly the Sunday Telegraph came up with some more zombie rumours linking Gareth to some Kazakh oligarch. Oh crap. Where will it end?

Edward Heath: Czechmate

It was a scandalous accusation, and the leading Conservative politician made clear he would be consulting his lawyers. A book by a defector from the Czechoslovak secret service was claiming that Edward Heath, who had only just been ousted as prime minister and leader of the Tories, had been the target of a homosexual blackmail plot. The defector, Josef Frolik, wrote that more than a decade previously, in the early 1960s, a colleague in London had decided that the noticeably unmarried minister was a ripe target. And so, it was said, the Heath Caper had been born.
According to Frolik, the man behind the plot was a brilliant young spy named Jan Mrazek, who specialised in targeting politicians (even becoming friendly, Frolik said, with the wife of one minister). Mrazek’s alleged plan was to exploit Heath’s well-known delight in playing the church organ.
A “handsome young organ virtuoso” named Reinberger was selected to act as the bait. Reinberger was supposedly trained in the “techniques of homosexual approach and seduction” before being sent to meet Heath in London and invite him back to Prague to play the internationally acclaimed organ at the grand baroque Church of St James. Then he would pounce, leaving Heath open to blackmail by the Czechoslovakians...

The Sunday Times.
The so-called "Heath Caper" is an old story, which first surfaced in the 70s.
Was there a fiendish blackmail plot by the far Right planning a Pinochet-style coup in Britain?
Probably not.
Josef Frolik almost certainly made it all up.
The Sunday Times concludes "there seems no evidence of a real plot."
Thanks for that.

• The Heath Caper is on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow at 11am.

Gareth Williams: Credible Evidence

BBC Radio 4's The Report returned to the Gareth Williams' story this evening.
The main assertion was that it would have been far easier than has been assumed for Williams to lock himself in the holdall, so it could well have been a solo sex act gone wrong.
This may seem like a minor point, but it's not. 
Earlier this month the coroner submitted an open "narrative verdict" suggesting a third party was "probably" involved and that Williams was "unlawfully killed", as evidence had been submitted that it was a near impossibility he could have locked himself inside.
Even though the keys were found inside the bag beneath his body!
During a reconstruction a yoga specialist "tried more than 100 times without success" - the Report journalist mastered it in five. 
Dr Richard Shepherd, who conducted one of the post-mortem examinations, told The Report;
"Now that we have credible evidence that it is possible to lock the bag from the inside, whilst it doesn't rule out homicide, clearly the chances of this as a solitary sexual act have to be considered in any future investigation by the Metropolitan Police."
Once again it looks to any rational observer that Gareth Williams' death was far more mundane and prosaic than the endless baseless media conjecture has suggested, and than the conspiracy theorists so dearly want to believe.
This case should not rest on the coroner and Williams' family's prudery and prejudices, and how they find other people's sex lives incomprehensible or unseemly.

Gareth Williams: Take Off Your Tinfoil Hat

"For people who feel a need to believe in conspiracies, here's one sitting there waiting for them. Just imagine the CIA deciding, How can we undermine and destroy all of these popular movements? Let's send them off on some crazy wild goose chase which is going to involve them in extremely detailed microanalysis and discussion of things that don't matter. That'll shut them up. That's happening... In case anybody misunderstands, I don't believe this for one moment, but it's the kind of thing that goes around."

Noam Chomsky.

Of course, the open verdict in Gareth Williams' inquest is an invitation to stupidity and wild speculation. 
Otherwise intelligent people lose all power of reason.
How depressing.
Williams was involved in quite mundane deskwork - certainly not any James Bond subterfuge and derring-do
The secret services would have wanted to make sure no sensitive and/or confidential information was exposed, this would be standard procedure, and is not indicative of any sinister intent.
There was no evidence of foul play in Gareth Williams' death.
It's beyond daft to then argue; "Well, someone must have destroyed the evidence, then."
It's far more likely that there was no evidence, because there was no evidence.
Just as the reason there is no evidence that monkeys built the moon out of cheese in 1949 is not because someone has destroyed the evidence, but because there is no evidence for it.
Just as it's far more likely Gareth Williams had an unconventional sex life, rather than him being taken out in a hit by Blofeld and his hired goons at SMERSH via the notorious "Put a body in a sports holdall" assassination technique.
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but real life and the real world tend to be rather boring and mundane.

Gareth Williams Inquest: A Narrative Verdict

The coroner, Fiona Wilcox, has returned a "narrative verdict" - this is legalese for saying she can't be sure how Gareth Williams died, and that there is not enough evidence to definitively conclude that he was "unlawfully killed".*  

However she said: “I am satisfied so that I am sure that a third party placed the bag (which contained Gareth) in to the bath and on the balance of probabilities locked the bag.
“The cause of death was unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated.
“I am therefore satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully.”
Quoted in the Telegraph online.

Though it is certainly possible that Gareth Williams was murdered, I fail to see how she can think it is "probable" from what she said during her summing-up.

She said: "Most of the fundamental questions in relation to how Gareth died remain unanswered."' BBC News.

In fine:

1. The most likely cause of death was poison or asphyxiation.
2. No traces of drugs or poison were found. But some drugs eg GHB/GBL metabolise into the body ["Alcohol and GHB were found in his blood, but were probably produced naturally" Times]. Poisons such as chloroform and cyanide would not be evident due to the state of decomposition.
3. There did not appear to be any serious injuries - and no signs of struggle. But it's difficult to be clear about minor injuries because the body was so badly decomposed.
4. The coroner believes it is "unlikely" he got into the bag by himself [This seems pure conjecture - but then so is almost all of this].
5. It would have been extremely difficult, but not impossible, to lock the holdall from inside.
6. The keys to the padlock were found inside the bag, beneath his right buttock. It would not have been difficult to get out by breaking the zip. There was no sign of a violent struggle to get out.
7. "The balance of probability" is that Gareth Williams was alive when he got in the bag. A pathologist said said it would be "extremely difficult" to place a floppy dead body in a foetal position as neat as that in which the corpse was found.
8. If so he would have died quite quickly of C02 poisoning whatever, probably within minutes.
9. Gareth Williams visited bondage websites sporadically [four times in two years] and is known to have experimented with self-bondage once. There is no evidence he had researched "claustrophilia" [arousal by enclosure].
10. There is no indication of suicidal intent [After searching the flat police "discovered a newspaper cutting that listed the main regrets of the dying" on a coffee table. Earlier report].

11. There were no DNA, footprints, fingerprints, or any other evidence suggesting the presence of a third-party. Though this may also suggest the flat had been professionally cleansed. ["Police found no unidentified fingerprints anywhere else in the death flat. All belonged to Mr Williams or his close family." Mail] ["There was no evidence that the flat had been 'wiped' of prints. Yet circumstances suggest that someone else, who knew their business enough not to leave clues, had been at work there. Probably wearing gloves." ibid. Eh?]

a. The DNA traces of at least two people were found but were so weak they may never be of any use and could be “years” old. Telegraph.
b. Results are expected within weeks as to whether a DNA sample has been recovered from a towel found in the kitchen. ibid.
c. A "DNA mix-up" occurred when the DNA of someone examining the case was mistaken for that of a third-party.
 d. "If a naked Mr Williams had climbed into the holdall while it was in the bath, he would have left hand and footprints. That there were none found suggests that he was already in the bag before it was placed in the bath." Mail.
12. There was no evidence of semen in the bag ["Traces of his semen were found on the floor of the bathroom in which his body was discovered and on his dressing gown" Mail].
13. There was no sign of forced entry to the flat ["but someone could have put their hand through the letter box and lifted the latch if the door was not double locked"]
14. His line manager did not report Williams was missing to the police for a week, and some evidence was handed over to the police late
15. It only emerged yesterday that M16 did not hand over to police nine computer memory sticks [and a holdall] found at his workplace that they had examined. It is not known what was on the sticks, or even if they were his. A mobile phone had been restored to factory setting the night before he died.
16. There were unverifiable reports of him visiting gay bars. But police have found no sexual partners and/or lovers [of either sex]. [Although he sets my gaydar ringing, if he was it is remarkable no trace has been found of him acting on this]
17. There was a collection of womens' clothes, shoes, make-up and a wig in the flat, estimated to be worth £20,000. These may have fitted him, they may have been gifts [I have no idea what bearing this would have on his death, either way though].
18. It was unusual for the heating in the flat to be on in August - this would have sped up decomposition. 
19. According to The Guardian; "During her verdict, Wilcox rejected 'suicidal intent', interest in bondage or cross-dressing, or "auto-erotic activity" being related to Williams's death." [Elsewhere in The Guardian online "appeared to reject..."]
[I find ruling out auto-erotic activity absolutely baffling - as I've said several times before let's take Occam's Razor to this case].
20. An officer from the Met said they believed a third-party was "definitely" involved ["either at the time of death or to cover up" Times], but there is no evidence Williams had arranged to meet someone.
21. MI6, SIS and Scotland Yard say there is no evidence his death was linked to his work [Cue cries of "But they would say that, wouldn't they?"]. ["Detective Superintendent Michael Broster said the possibility that an MI6 officer may have been involved in the death of Gareth Williams could not be ruled out..." The Times]. From what little we know of his job, it seems to have been quite mundane deskwork - not anything that would have put him in any spooks' firing line...

The police investigation is continuing. 

* "A narrative verdict has been an option for coroners in England and Wales since 2004 and is where the circumstances of a death are recorded without attributing the cause to a named individual"

PS This is all taken from the initial online reports, obviously. Hoping to read a transcript soon. Will update accordingly.

Gareth Williams Inquest: Titter Ye Not!

'The MI6 spy whose body was found in a padlocked holdall in his bath was once discovered tied to his bed in just his boxer shorts by his former landlady, the inquest into his death heard today.
'Describing Gareth Williams as “embarrassed, panicky, and apologetic” when found, Jennifer Elliot’s statement to the inquest detailed how she and her husband heard cries for help from their lodger in the early hours of the morning.
“Approximately three years ago, in bed, we heard Gareth shouting for help,” she said.
“It was about 1.30am, in the winter. We both got up and got the spare key. I called up, ‘are you ok?’, and we went up to find him lying on his bed with both arms and hands tied with a material that was attached to each bobble at the end of the headboard.
“We were both in shock. He was very embarrassed, panicky, and apologetic. He said, ‘I just wanted to see if I could get myself free’.”
'The spy was dressed in boxer shorts, with the bedclothes pulled over his legs, she said.
"He was not aroused and I could not see any sperm near him," Ms Elliot continued.
'She added that the unknown material had cut into Williams’ wrists.
Ms Elliott went on to explain that they believed that the event was probably of a sexual nature rather “than escapology”...
“He apologised and said it would not happen again, and Gareth never caused any situation like it again..."

The Daily Mirror goes into the most detail about what was heard at the Gareth Williams inquest yesterday.
The Sun were kind enough to publish a photo of the actual bed.
I do feel guilty, but it's hard to not find something cruelly amusing in this scenario. 
It appeals to a very English sense of humour - most papers seemed to be sniggering about it today - it sounds like a scene from a Whitehall farce.
It's even funnier if you read out Mrs Elliot's words in the voice of the landlady from Monty Python, I find.
Sorry Gareth.

Update: BBC TV News item Friday 27th, includes man demonstrating getting into a sports holdall. 

Gareth Williams: Still No News

MI6 Spy Gareth Williams Complained Of Friction At Work, Inquest Told

Sister says Williams disliked office culture and had been due to return to GCHQ one week after his body was found in holdall

'Gareth Williams, the intelligence worker found dead in a padlocked holdall at his London flat, had requested a transfer from MI6 and had been due to move one week after his body was found, an inquest heard...
'Describing her brother as someone who was happiest "in the mountains" and engaged in outdoor pursuits, Subbe said: "He disliked office culture, post-work drinks, flash car competitions and the rat race. He even spoke of friction in the office."'
 

The Guardian.

Well you don't often hear of people who work in offices complaining about their job, do you?

In fact, I think this may be a first.

I imagine, like so many of us members of the disgruntled community, he thought; "Well, I'll zip myself up in a sports bag and have a stranglewank, that'll learn them."

As before Fagburn has two words to say on this... Occam's Razor.

Gareth Williams: Without A Clue

Gareth Williams' pre-inquest hearing was finally held today - his body was found in a hold-all in August 2010.
Lawyer Anthony O'Toole told the coroner court; "The impression of the family is that the unknown third party was a member of some agency specialising in the dark arts of the secret services - or evidence has been removed post-mortem by experts in the dark arts."
But the court also heard no DNA or fingerprints were found at the flat, there was no sign of forced entry, and no poison was in his body.
Using Occam's Razor doesn't it sound like there was nobody else involved in Gareth William's death?
If someone wanted to murder him why do it by putting him in a bag - and why naked?
I suppose it's possible he could have been bumped up off by spooks from SMERSH - though we don't know what work he was doing for MI6.
Who knows, maybe Prince Phillip was behind it?
It does seem most likely - seeing as the police literally don't appear to have a clue about any other possible reason - that Williams died during a sex game gone wrong, and his family can't contemplate this?*

* His family have been quoted in the Standard as saying that rumours he was gay were a "Smear campaign... 'Maybe it's the Government or somebody trying to discredit him.'

PS Just read the Mail's hilarious account; "New evidence emerges sparking fresh questions from the victim's family..."
"At a public hearing yesterday, it emerged that the flat may have been swept clean of evidence, with no fingerprints or DNA anywhere."
So the "new evidence" is there there was no evidence?
Genius!

Update: Another "Eureka!" piece in The Mail On Sunday; 'The woman with THREE identities who could hold key to death of the body-in-the-bag spy'
This is a former flatmate of Williams according to the ever-present "source"...

Gareth Williams: A Worrying Theory

The Daily Mirror has another go at cracking the Gareth Williams' case - well it's been a month since The Sunday Times ran the last one.
'In a throwback to the dark days of the Cold War, a worrying theory has emerged about the death of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams'
After a heck of a lot of the usual blather - Was he gay? A transvestite? Was it a bizarre sex game gone wrong? - we hear from one Crispin Black, "an intelligence analyst and former adviser to the Government [who] says the most likely explanation is that Williams was murdered."
Really?!! Do go on...
“The thing has a professional air – it’s neat, it’s tidy, it’s organised,” he said.
“A bath is where you put things if you don’t want any forensic residue to be left behind – because you know where the body’s been and you can clear up after it.”
The breathless Mirror hack informs us; "The fact the body was found locked in a holdall, with the key inside, provides the strongest indication he was executed by a foreign death squad.
"Investigators believe the team were so expert at their deadly trade, they left no obvious signs of the cause of death."
A-ha!
Wait there's more.
An anonymous "security source" is quoted as saying;
“This has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination. If you’ve got a problem with your codes being broken, the only solution is to remove the codebreaker.
"They’re incredibly hard to replace because they are recruited for having the sharpest mathematical brains.
"There’s always suspicion about the Russians because in many ways the Cold War never completely ended.”
And this has all the hallmarks of pure speculation. 
Next!

Gareth Williams Murder: Follow The Money

Can it really be six whole months since the Mail has run a story about Gareth Williams?
You remember - the "murdered MI6 spy"/"body in the bag" guy.
I used to enjoy the regualar updates on "the spy who knew too much" from the newspaper that knew fuck-all.
Poor Mr Williams is back in The Mail On Sunday today.
Trust me - you really only need to read the headline;
'Did Russian mafia kill the body-in-a-bag spy? MI6 man found dead in holdall in London, was developing secret technology to track gangsters' laundered cash'
And guess where this is from?
That's right! "A source".
"Neither GCHQ nor the Metropolitan police would discuss the new information."
That's probably cause they know a newspaper quoting an anonymous source is about as reliable as quoting a bottle of tomato sauce.
The MoS tell us that;
"His family reject claims that their fitness-fanatic son was gay and have been angered at the way the police allowed his private life to dominate their inquiry.
"The inquest into Mr Williams’ death – which sparked several outlandish conspiracy theories – will resume in September..."
Oh you mean like the "several outlandish conspiracy theories" IN THE DAILY MAIL AND THE MAIL ON SUNDAY???
Like this one today?

Gareth Williams: Death Of A Welsh Spy

BBC Wales showed Gareth Williams: Death Of A Welsh Spy last night.
Watch it here.
Sian Lloyd-Jones, a "close friend" of Gareth Williams, spoke about the case for the first time.
"I think it's really important here for everything to be investigated - absolutely everything. I think it's about time now that the investigation is broadened.
"I feel the police did wrong around Christmas time when they released information about the [womens'] clothing, but didn't reveal that there was £10,000 of mountaineering equipment as well."
Fagburn's hunch about the latter is that he was into mountaineering, but the womens' clothing?
Lloyd-Jones believes they were too small for Williams, and were probably intended for her or his sister - an estimated value of £15,000 has been put on these clothes.
"The things that have been in the papers have been so hurtful. To read what has been written about him has completely broken my heart, and I know it would have broken Gareth's as well."
Lloyd-Jones says she does not think Williams was a cross-dresser or gay.
He was definitely Welsh, though, right?
So err... basically we're all still none the wiser.
Anyone?

Gareth Williams' Murder: Dying For His Art?

The surest sign of what a slow news week this has been is that the Sunday papers had to resort to digging up Gareth Williams.
''Spy in the bag' inquest delayed as police chase new leads', The Mail On Sunday announced in a headline that made the poor man sound like some sort of readymeal.
Though the Mail broke with tradition by not saying what these leads were - or without making some new ones up.
That was left to the Sunday Mirror with 'MI6 spy death could be bizarre art course accident'
"MI6 spy Gareth Williams – whose body was found naked in a padlocked bag – may have died while taking part in a bizarre experiment for an art project.
"Police now believe the codebreaker could have accidentally killed himself while doing research for a part-time art and fashion course after being set an assignment entitled Living Spaces."
And why not?
Fagburn did get a very strange email recently claiming that Mr Williams was taken out because he was a WikiLeaks-type whistleblower.
I'm only surprised none of the papers has gone with this one yet.
Or framed up an "eccentric" neighbour with a funny hairdo...

Fagburn Awards 23: So Many Stories, So Few Facts Award

Gareth Williams - The "MI6 Suitcase Murder Spy" guy.
This week's rumour; 'Friend insists Gareth Williams was not gay - and was being trained by MI6 for undercover role' (The Daily Mail).
At the time of typing "Mr Williams' death remains suspicious and unexplained and inquiries into the circumstances continue."
Poor sod.

The Guardian: Who Killed Gareth Williams? Dunno

'When the bagged body of an MI6 agent was found in a bathtub, speculation went into overdrive. Was it suicide? Murder? A professional hit, or a sexual game gone wrong?'
And why does The Guardian's graphic show him in a sniper rifle's crosshair when he wasn't shot?
So many questions - none of which are answered in a long feature in today's Guardian.
Journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy have put in a lot of work on this, but are still none the wiser.
Can they even be certain that Gareth Williams was gay?
Not really.
"Detectives had been quietly investigating whether Gareth Williams was gay. They had canvassed witnesses in the Vauxhall Cross village of gay clubs and bars, a short walk from Alderney Street. They had also studied Williams's computers and reading matter, his journals, magazines and computer cache. Despite outright denials from his family, detectives were privately certain that Gareth was gay, although they had been unable to find trace of any sexual encounters. They had also come to believe that his sexual orientation was not central to the inquiry (although his sexual preferences might be). There was no evidence of Williams paying for escorts, buying S&M equipment, using porn or drugs of any kind. "This man didn't really even drink," one frustrated detective said.
"The police felt they were being hurried along by other parties, keen for the scandal to go away. "Someone, somewhere, who has access to case material, is saying, 'He's queer and asked for it', rather than waiting for the outcome of the case," one veteran detective said..."
And no, still nobody knows how he died, never mind why.
But a new-ish lead is added to the conspiracy;
"He had been liaising again with counterparts at the NSA, who were part of an effort to create an American cyber defence policy, to prevent the siphoning off of secret or commercially sensitive data or a military style assault on defence or civil systems. Its importance was alluded to last month in a speech by home secretary Theresa May, in which she identified cyber crime as among the pre-eminent future threats facing the UK. A cyber crimes specialist who knew Williams revealed that at the time of his death he was researching British vulnerability to Russian, Turkish and Chinese gangs: "He was already on top of it."
"Rogue individuals and nation states, Islamist terror groups and radical loners, extortionists and organised criminals – these were just some of those Williams had observed, investigated, disrupted and provoked. Any one of them was capable of reciprocating, lethally."
So, erm, it could be any of these?
Or none of them.
How's about answering your own question; "Was it suicide? Murder? A professional hit, or a sexual game gone wrong?"
"Back at the Yard, Operation Finlayson detectives were looking at a vast range of potential threats, but still had few clues, no accomplices or even a plausible denouement for a man whose personal and professional inclinations were to camouflage everything he did."
Oh.

Gareth Williams: The Resurrection

Here's a blast from the past!
Gareth Williams - you remember; Welsh bloke, MI6 "spook" found dead in a hold-all, very sad, very strange, keen on cycling.
It was his funeral yesterday - the head of MI6 attended.
The police appear to know so little about Williams that this presents the rather unsettling image of them accosting mourners for information.
Anyway, Mr Williams was back on the front page of The Daily Mail today; 'MI6 spook did NOT die alone: Police certain he was padlocked in bag by someone else'
"The MI6 spy whose naked body was found in a sports bag in his bath could not have died alone, police believe.
"They are now certain he was padlocked into the large holdall by someone else.
"Gareth Williams, 31, who was working on secondment for MI6, was alive when he got into - or was forced into – the bag and died from suffocation.
"There were no injuries on his body to suggest a struggle and police have still not ruled out the possibility that his death was the culmination of a bizarre sex game that went wrong."
Ah yes - I remember reading a story - 'Did dead MI6 spy zip HIMSELF into sports bag in bizarre sex game that went terribly wrong?'.
It was in The Mail On Sunday on September 12.
Back to today's Mail: "We can also reveal that there is no evidence to support claims that Mr Williams was a cross-dresser, that bondage equipment was found at his home, that a laptop was missing from the flat, or that he had reported to spy bosses that he was being followed."
See how many of them you can spot in this single story in The Daily Mail on August 26.
And now? "Police have also dismissed allegations of irregularities in his finances and there is no evidence that Mr Williams had committed any criminal acts."
What like this one?
'Investigation into death of British spy Gareth Williams takes another mystifying turn: What happened to 18K in spy's bank?'
That was in The Mail On Sunday on August 29.
The day before The Mail told us; 'Riddle of murder spy's money trail: Why, for three days in a row, was £2,000 paid into his account and then taken out?'
And what about one of the oddest claims of them all? "Claims that a WPC or escapologist of similar height and build to Mr Williams had locked the padlock while inside the same type of bag, during a ‘re-enactment’ of the possible events leading to his death, have been dismissed."
Funny. I read about that last claim in The Mail On Sunday; "WPC climbed into bag to show how he may have died".
They even published a photo of a similar bag and a copy of The Daily Mail to show how it was possible.
Buried somewhere in today's piece in The Daily Mail we learn; "The case remains officially classified as ‘suspicious and unexplained’."
You couldn't make it up.

William Hague & Gareth Williams: A Conspiracy Theory Waiting To Happen.

1. William Hague, Britain's Foreign Secretary, is responsible for MI6.

2. Gareth Williams worked for MI6, he was involved in top secret intelligence-gathering.

3. William Hague has been subject to speculation in the press that he was gay.

4. Gareth Williams has been subject to speculation in the press that he was gay.

5. Rumours of William Hague's "improper relationship" with Christopher Myers first went public in The Daily Mail on August 21st 2010.

6. Gareth Williams body was found at his London flat on August 23rd 2010.

7. And what was Gareth Williams doing at (or near) Harrods on August 15th, the last day he was seen alive?

If anything happens to Fagburn in the next few days, you'll know why.

Gareth Williams Murder Update: Nobody Knows Anything

The plot thickens!
Or maybe it's thinning.
On Wednesday Gareth Williams' murder was alleged by several media to be some Cold War style hit.
The Sun asked aloud; "Did al-Qaeda bump off suitcase spook?"
Yesterday The Sun hinted that his death was linked to Williams supposed homosexuality.
And today... Nobody knows for sure.
The Sun says; "Spy chiefs launched a probe yesterday into their security vetting of murdered spook Gareth Williams as it emerged bondage gear was found in his flat..."
"Detectives are believed to have discovered porn films and sado-masochistic equipment..."
"The master codebreaker working for MI6 was also linked to a male escort..."
Good old allegations of "kinky sex" - they make the tabloid world go round.
Although the broadsheet Daily Telegraph is usually more prurient than any of them; "Daily Telegraph; "One line of inquiry is that he is the victim of a sex game that went wrong and questions remain over why he was not discovered sooner."
The Daily Star managed to shoehorn in allusions to two of the most infamous names in espionage.
"A real-life James Bond found murdered in his bath could have fallen prey to a modern day Mata Hari."
Although as he worked as a codebreaker, Williams was more like Alan Turing than James Bond.
And Mata Hari was probably innocent, but anyway, do go on...
"Police found a SIM card containing telephone numbers of escort agencies in the flat where 31-year-old spy Gareth Williams was discovered stuffed inside a giant sports bag."
"Porn was also recovered from the £500,000 top floor apartment."
"Some reports, unconfirmed by police, suggested women’s clothes in Mr Williams’ size were discovered in the apartment in Pimlico, central London, suggesting he might have been a cross-dresser."
Although not according to The Star's sister paper The Daily Express;
Daily Express: "They [police] believe the spy may have known his attacker and let him into the flat. However, reports that the spy was a transvestite with a secret double life have been dismissed."
Over at The Daily Mail they were a little more reluctant to jump to any conclusions; "It has been reported that Mr Williams, who lived alone and did not have a partner, was a gay cross dresser and may have been killed by a gay lover."
Though they happy to speculate like nobody's business; "Police sources believe another theory is the spy's killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.
"They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent's body.
"Police have also asked a pathologist to check whether Mr Williams's neck was broken, which would suggest a professional hit, the sources said."
But - and it's quite a big but; "Those who know him say there is nothing to suggest that he may have been homosexual."
And finally, we hear on The Daily Mail online this afternoon;
"The government may be running a 'dirty tricks' campaign to blacken the name of murdered British spy Gareth Williams, according to the agent's family.
"William Hughes, the codebreaker's uncle, said Mr Williams's parents Ellen and Ian were 'furious' that their son has been labelled as gay and a cross dresser in media reports.
"'It is completely false,' said Mr Hughes, 62, who yesterday visited the Williams's family home in Holyhead, North Wales.
"'The lad had been away from home for a long time — we did not know much about his private life, but it has never crossed any of our minds that he could be gay..."
'Maybe it's the Government or somebody trying to discredit him.'"
It's certainly something to think about, isn't it?
Let's leave things today with the latest round-up from the rumour mill from The Mail;
"The latest reports on Mr Williams include claims that bondage gear and equipment associated with sado-masochism had been discovered in the flat he used in Pimlico, London, while it has also been claimed he had links to a male escort.
"Police sources believe one theory is the spy's killer may have planted a trail of clues to make it seem as though he was murdered by a gay lover.
"They said gay magazines and the phone numbers of gay escort men were found in the apartment near the agent's body.
"But people who knew the cycling enthusiast said he never gave any indication of being homosexual and a former landlord, who rented a flat to him for ten years, never saw him bring anyone – male or female – back to his home.
"Sources close to the inquiry have dismissed some of the allegations, which raises questions over who was behind them - and why they were made."
How many of the "allegations" were the media behind?