SENIOR BRITISH detectives believe the mystery death of the spy Gareth Williams will be solved by getting an insight into his private life after they revealed he had visited bondage websites and a drag club and had £15,000 worth of unworn designer womenswear in his wardrobe.
Mr Williams’s decomposed body was found in a padlocked holdall in his apartment less than a mile from MI6 (British intelligence) headquarters in London, where he was a senior analyst.
Police believe he died a week earlier, in the early hours of August 16th last, and that someone else was present. For months they have struggled to answer basic questions about the death. Tests have shown no signs of a struggle or forced entry into the apartment, and no sign that he was drugged.
Yesterday, Scotland Yard’s detectives gave their best account of the death. They revealed that:
* Mr Williams used his iPhone to visit websites on bondage and escape from bondage in the months before his death.
* He must have been padlocked into the holdall by someone else, as it was impossible for him to have locked himself inside.
* Once padlocked in, with keys inside, he could only have survived for 30 minutes before suffocating.
* Police are keen to talk to a Mediterranean-looking couple who visited his apartment block and claimed to have a key to his flat weeks before Mr Williams’s death.
* Four days before his death, Mr Williams went to a drag club called Bistrotheque in Bethnal Green, east London, to see an act called Jimmy Woo, and had tickets for two similar performances at a pub in Vauxhall, near MI6 HQ.
A witness told police Mr Williams had been seen at a well-known gay bar in Vauxhall months before his death.
When his body was discovered, £15,000 of unworn women’s clothing, wigs and shoes were found in his wardrobe. Mr Williams had enrolled in two fashion design courses at Central Saint Martins College, in Clerkenwell, London, in 2009 and 2010.
Speculation has been rife that Mr Williams’s highly secretive work might explain his death. He worked as an expert on codes at the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham before moving to MI6 on a secondment.
Det Chief Supt Hamish Campbell, head of Scotland Yard’s homicide command, said, however: “This is not linked to his work – it’s his private life.” He said police had been reluctant to make public details of Mr Williams’s private life, but were doing so now because his lifestyle could be key to solving whether his death was a sex game gone wrong, manslaughter or murder.
Police called in an expert in surviving in confined spaces who concluded there was no way Mr Williams could have padlocked himself into the bag. Chief Supt Campbell said: “Somebody must have been there to secure him in the bag on a voluntary or involuntary basis. If someone was there and it was a voluntary activity gone wrong, why not cut him free or call an ambulance?
“The alternative scenario is there is maybe something more sinister to it. We just don’t know.” The official cause of death is still inconclusive, but he added: “It is most likely suffocation, but we can’t be certain.” An inquest into the death will be held on February 15th. – (Guardian service)