Public school-educated Parliamentary researcher and second man will appear in ... trends now
A former parliamentary researcher and a second man are set to appear in court charged with spying for China after an investigation by counter-terrorism police.
Christopher Cash, 29, from Whitechapel in east London, and Christopher Berry, 32, from Witney in Oxfordshire, are both accused of an offence under the Official Secrets Act.
The two men will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court later today.
Berry taught economics and English in the Hangzhou region, in eastern China near Shanghai. In a YouTube video posted two years ago, he praises a lake in the Zhejiang province.
He was arrested alongside the public school-educated son of a GP who co-founded an influential policy group with security minister Tom Tugendhat.
The offences Mr Cash is alleged to have committed are claimed to have happened between 20 January 2022 and 3 February 2023, while those against Mr Berry are alleged to have happened between 28 December 2021 and 3 February 2023.
Christopher Cash, 29 - a Tory parliamentary researcher and China specialist - had been charged for an offence under the Official Secrets Act alongside Berry
Berry, 32, from Oxfordshire (pictured right) is accused of spying between December 28, 2021 and February 3, 2023, under the Official Secrets Act 1911. He previously taught in the Hangzhou region
Berry, who now works in digital marketing, also ran a blog in which he described a day in the life of a teacher in China.
Meanwhile, Cash was director of the China Research Group, which was initially chaired by Mr Tugendhat and then Alicia Kearns, who serves as chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.
Cash, who insists he is 'completely innocent', grew up in a wealthy suburb of Edinburgh and attended £5,000-a-term George Watson's College - where he was head of house - before studying History at the University of St Andrews.
Colleagues said there was shock when he vanished from Westminster, where he was at the heart of a social scene and organised bi-monthly pub drinks for a 'Whitehall crowd of quite young people interested in China'.
The charge against Berry, of Witney in
