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UK prosecutors have dropped charges against two men accused of spying on behalf of China, including a former parliamentary aide.

The Crown Prosecution Service said on Monday it would not proceed with charges against Christopher Cash, 30, from Whitechapel in east London, and Christopher Berry, 33, from Witney in Oxfordshire. Cash had worked as a parliamentary researcher in Westminster.

The two men had consistently denied the allegations since first being arrested in 2023, but were charged in April last year with “providing prejudicial information to a foreign state, China”.

On Monday prosecutors told the Old Bailey that they would offer no evidence against the men and could not continue with the case. The pair were due to go on trial in October.

A CPS spokesperson said: “In accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, the evidence in this case has been kept under continuous review and it has now been determined that the evidential standard for the offence indicted is no longer met. No further evidence will be offered.”

Cash was previously the director of the China Research Group, a Conservative campaign group on China-UK relations.

“The prosecution’s decision to proceed against Christopher Cash was, to put it as charitably as we can, ill-judged,” Cash’s lawyer, Henry Blaxland KC, told the court on Monday, according to a copy of his remarks shared with the Financial Times.

He added: “We are entirely confident that if the case had proceeded to trial, once the prosecution evidence had been subjected to scrutiny it would have become apparent that there was no case for him to answer.”

Both men had been accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act. Between January 2022 and February 2023, Cash was alleged to have “for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State obtained, collected, recorded, published, or communicated” to another person “articles, notes, documents or information” that could be “useful to an enemy”, the CPS said when it charged the men last year.

Berry faced a similar allegation between December 2021 and February 2023. A lawyer for Berry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.