UK Border Force officer was 'working for China', court told

A UK Border Force officer surveilled and investigated Chinese citizens in Britain as part of a "shadow policing operation" with its "tentacles" reaching from Hong Kong, a court has heard.

The prosecution said Chi Leung "Peter" Wai, also known as "fatboy", was being given tasks by Chung Biu "Bill" Yuen, a retired Hong Kong police officer who was working at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO) in London.

Both men are on trial at the Old Bailey on charges under the National Security Act.

The court heard the men arranged for their targets, many of whom were dissidents, to be filmed as part of the surveillance - with the jury shown one woman in Pontefract answering her door in pink pyjamas.

Duncan Atkinson KC said the alleged operation "involved persons connected with the Hong Kong authorities acting as if Pontefract were a town in China rather than Yorkshire".

Wai, 38, and Yuen, 65, are alleged to have carried out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners, some of them claiming asylum in the UK. A second UK border officer who allegedly got involved in the surveillance, Matthew Trickett, was found dead in May 2024 after being released on bail.

Through his job at the UK Border Force, Wai - who was also a volunteer special constable with the City of London Police and used to work for the Metropolitan Police - had access to the Home Office immigration database called Atlas.

The jury heard that Wai would sometimes search the database for information about Chinese dissidents on his rest days, when he shouldn't have been doing any searches at all.

Wai, who ran a private security company called D5 Security, is said to have passed on some jobs to fellow UK Border Force colleague called Trickett, who also had his own a private security company.

When Yuen, Wai and Trickett were arrested, detectives found what was called a "Surveillance Report" about a woman called Monica Kwong.

Kwong had left Hong Kong in 2023 with her young son after being accused of fraud, which she said was a "set up" by her former employer.

The report is said to have included instructions to use "undisclosed investigation methods" and then "commence observations".

It said "operators" would follow the "subject" and report their movements with picture and video evidence.

The report suggests that the team managed to enter her block of flats and look through her mail, identifying her son.

The prosecution said Wai used the Atlas database to search about Kwong and her son, which Atkinson said was "a further misuse of the database… not for legitimate UK purposes but for the benefit of persons in Hong Kong".

Yuen had allegedly sent Wai information about Kwong's son, including details of his passport number and school, and the reason why he had left the school.

In January 2024, a man involved in the surveillance of Kwong knocked on her door and filmed her as he handed her a package. Wai sent Yuen the video and her address in Pontefract. Yuen forwarded both of those to Wing Cheun Cheuk, a police officer in Hong Kong.

In his messages with Cheuk, Yuen sometimes referred to Wai as "fatboy".

"It was a shadow operation being undertaken without the knowledge of the UK authorities, as if Monica Kwong was in Hong Kong not Yorkshire," the prosecution said.

In March and April 2024, Wai started involving Trickett, who in turn discussed surveillance techniques with a colleague in Immigration Enforcement who refused to get involved further.

The court was told that Trickett, a former British Royal Marine, allegedly assembled a team including Jonathan Dunn, a close protection officer who left the military in 2023, and Jason Davies, a former fraud investigator.

WhatsApp messages suggest Davies carried out surveillance on Kwong's flat in Pontefract on 24 April 2024.

This included knocking on her door and then secretly filming her and her son in their pyjamas when they answered it, a video which was shown to the court on Thursday.

Atkinson said Kwong "did recall a man coming to her door" but "did not appreciate that this was the tentacles reaching her from Hong Kong".

A few days later, on 30 April, a video played to the jury shows that Trickett and Dunn, dressed in black combats, led a group of people up the stairs in Kwong's block and down the corridor to her flat.

Kwong's former boss, Tina Zou - who accused her of fraud - was also there, the court was told. She had flown in from Hong Kong that morning.

The video shows that Trickett rapped several times on the door, with Zou looking on. But there was no reply.

Later, he allegedly posted a note under the door saying:

"Dear Resident. I knocked on your door today but there was no answer. We are checking all the residents' electricity boxes due to safety faults. I will return at 6.30pm. Thanks Dave. Maintenance Department."

The prosecution said that next evening a group of people returned and Trickett poured water under her door, again saying he was "Dave from maintenance" who had come about "a leak".

Again, nobody answered, and the jury were told that they would learn tomorrow that the door was forced later that night.

After being arrested at Kwong's home on 1 May, Wai allegedly had his warrant card as a City of London special police officer and a second - fake - card identifying him as a superintendent.

Trickett was found dead in May after he had been charged and given bail.

Yuen and Wai both deny charges of assisting a foreign intelligence service, and foreign interference. Wai also denies a charge of misconduct in public office while conducting searches of Home Office databases.

The trial is expected to last six or seven weeks.