What really happen to Gareth Williams - the spy found dead in a sports bag?

the world of John Le Carre, deaths by the security services are usually carried out to look like accidents. It makes sense, they don’t want any fuss. An important agent or scientist that needs to be deposed of, in the cause of national security will therefore be made to look like a travel accident, heart attack or suicide. The reader, and the public by large, want something else. They enjoy scandal with their intrigue. They want to believe that the world of National Security is one of high espionage and high stakes. 

It is why the death of Gareth Williams in the Summer of 2010 enthralled the nation. Williams was found naked decomposing in a padlocked sports bag in an empty bathtub in a locked flat. The police arrived around a week after he died. At that point, they were convinced that foul play had taken place. This story would probably have made the news regardless of his profession but the fact that he worked for MI6 solidified it. It could easily be the plot of an airport novel.

For the next two years, the British public would eat up scandalous tales that the tabloid press were throwing out. Like seagulls on the seafront pier, they happily gorged on anything without much though. Stories that could not be at all verified – such as the allegation that Williams enjoyed crossdressing and had thousands of pounds worth of women’s clothing – were thrown out to further satisfy the needs of a hungry readership.

Of course, it also helped to delegitimise Williams in the eyes of the public. Though ‘The Sun’ and its ilk would never come out with it fully, its inference was clear. This man engaged in fetishes. He was not normal. His death therefore could have been a tragic accident and there was nothing more to see here. The press don’t mind doing that, they do it often enough. They’re quite happy to throw an entire group under the bus if it sells. There was no foundation for the crude way that they treated Williams. They happily painted a picture of a sexual deviant using the fact that his search history showed mild interest in bondage and his supposed crossdressing as evidence. Never mind that there is nothing at all connected between those two activities or that there is anything deviant either. It gave the tabloids enough to discredit Williams.

The story had moved on from the fact that he was a secret service agent to the fact that he had strange sexual fantasies. One really must marvel at the power of the press. A spy is found in a padlocked holdhall in an empty bathtub. His phone is found to have been wiped and the actual bag has no fingerprints of Williams anywhere on it. The key to the lock is underneath the bag. All evidence in those initial assessments points to foul play. However, the press was able to formulate a juicer story on far less evidence that somehow discounted the notion of foul play in the eyes of many.   

Having said that, the initial coroner, Dr. Fiona Wilcox would eventually conclude that it was most likely criminally motivated. She did however state that she didn’t have enough evidence to conclude this for sure which resulted in the investigation being reopened.  It would however conclude that it was most likely a tragic accident.

It’s not entirely unfathomable that it was an accidentaldeath. In the first inquest, Williams’ landlady would give evidence that one night in 2007 she was awaken at around half one in the morning by Williamscalling for help. He’d managed to tie himself to his bed and couldn’t get out. She, along with her husband, helped him out and they never spoke of it again. However she believed it was probably more to do with a sexual fantasy than escapology. Then again, people often explain the unexplainable by using their own frame of reference so perhaps explaining it away as misadventure was easier than believing her lodger was an able spy.

Whatever the truth, this story will continue to run. In 2015 his death was again questioned in the British press. The Daily Mail would suggest that MI6 were angered when Williams accessed confidential data on Bill Clinton. Then again, this was just as Hillary was beginning her Presidential run so it is entirely possible that this story was completely fabricated to make the Clinton’s look bad. Later that same year, a former KGB agent would claim that Williams death had came at the hands of Russians who wanted to protect a source they had in GCHQ.

In the end, the enigma that was Gareth Williams will likely never be fully decoded. A undeniably intelligent and bright light whose candle became unlit in the strangest of circumstances. It was enough to result in a TV series, London Spy, being created based on him. That is unsurprising considering how interesting the story was. It’s just unfortunate that it was real life and not just a work of fiction. Williams was not an interesting character brought to life by an impressive novelist. He was a man with a family who have had to suffer not only the loss of a son and brother but also the constant invasion of the press hungry for a good story.