In a statement released through his solicitor, Mr Cash told the BBC: “I have, for a long time, been concerned by the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the United Kingdom and, prior to these false allegations, was working to inform Parliamentarians and the public about those risks.”
Mr Cash and Mr Berry would talk and exchange messages between Westminster and China, according to the first of three witness statements by the deputy national security adviser Matt Collins to the CPS – released by the government on Wednesday.
For example, according to Mr Collins’ statement, Mr Cash told Mr Berry in June 2022 that he thought Jeremy Hunt would pull out of the Tory leadership race.
In July 2022, he allegedly sent a voice note saying that Tugendhat would almost certainly get a job in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet. Both these pieces of information ended up in reports that Mr Berry submitted to a man called “Alex”, who the prosecution said was a Chinese intelligence agent.
In his statement, Mr Cash said he was aware “a small amount of the information” he was sending to Mr Berry was being passed on. But he thought Mr Berry was working for “a strategic advisory company” helping clients “invest in the UK”.
Mr Cash said the information he gave Mr Berry was publicly available or “just political gossip that formed part of the everyday Westminster rumour mill”.
In a statement given to BBC News via his lawyer on Thursday, Mr Berry gives a similar account.
He said his reports were “provided to a Chinese company which I believed had clients wishing to develop trading links with the UK”.
Those reports “contained no classified information”, Mr Berry said, and “concerned economic and commercial issues widely discussed in the UK at the time and drew on information freely in the public domain, together with political conjecture, much of which proved to be inaccurate”.