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A former diplomat who served at the British embassy in Beijing has cast doubt on what’s thought to have been a major allegation in the failed prosecution case against two men who were accused of spying for China.

Professor Kerry Brown, a leading sinologist who would have been called as a defence expert if charges against Chris Berry and Chris Cash had not been dropped, thought it was entirely implausible that Cai Qi, a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Communist Party politburo, had arranged to meet Berry at a restaurant in eastern China and then been kept waiting for 40 minutes because of traffic delays.

Brown was speaking to Ken Macdonald (pictured) and Tim Owen for an episode of their Double Jeopardy podcast released yesterday. The two KCs suggested that Brown’s expert report, disclosed to the Crown Prosecution Service shortly before the trial had been due to open, might have persuaded the director of public prosecutions to drop the case.

But, as Macdonald told me yesterday, that theory raises more questions than it answers. In an interview for A Lawyer Talks, I asked the former prosecutor about implications of Double Jeopardy’s double scoop.

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