INTERVIEW 14 ~ TAPE 26

Person interviewed: Michael John Smith

Place of interview: Paddington Green Police Station

Date of interview: 11^th August 1992

Time commenced: 17:27 Time concluded: 17:55

Other persons present: Detective Superintendent Malcolm MacLeod

Detective Sergeant Stephen John Beels

Richard Jefferies (Duty Solicitor)

Beels: This interview is being tape-recorded. I am Detective Sergeant Stephen Beels, New Scotland Yard, attached to Special Branch. The other officer is ...

MacLeod: I am Detective Superintendent Malcolm McLeod from Special Branch at New Scotland Yard.

Beels: And you are Sir ...

Smith: Mr Michael Smith.

Beels: And you are Sir ...

Solicitor: Richard Jefferies, solicitor, Tuckers Solicitors.

Beels: We are in the Interview Room No. 2 at Paddington Green Police Station. At the end of this interview, Mr Smith, I will give you a form explaining your rights of access to a copy of the tape. The date is the 11th August 1992, the time is 5:27 pm. I must caution you that you do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand Mr Smith?

Smith: Yes I do.

Beels: Do you agree that the tapes were unsealed in your presence?

Smith: Yes I do.

Beels: And.

MacLeod: Thank you very much. Mr Smith, in the previous interview you spoke of having been approached by the man Harry back in 1990?

Smith: That’s correct.

MacLeod: Yeah. Can you tell me just a little bit more about him. In terms of what sort of person was he? Can you describe him as a person?

Smith: I thought I’d done that.

MacLeod: Yes, but yes. I would just like to hear for myself. I mean, you know, if you could ...

Smith: Well, as I said, he was a, sort of, a matter of fact person, not, not being very elaborate in his discussions with me.

MacLeod: Uh, uh.

Smith: Very much getting to the point of what he was interested in, and not wanting to discuss things socially.

MacLeod: Mmm. Did he say how he got to, how he got your name?

Smith: No, he didn’t. I can’t actually remember if I if I asked him that question or not, but I did have the feeling that he had targeted me for some reason.

MacLeod: Did he telephone you at work? How did he make contact with you in the first place, was it a telephone call?

Smith: He telephoned me at work.

MacLeod: And did he ask for you by Christian name, or surname?

Smith: Yes, I think he asked me, he knew my name.

MacLeod: Mmm. And just, so I’ve got it clear in my own mind. On that first occasion, you didn’t react to that approach?

Smith: No, that’s not true. I did react, because he asked me to go to a public house.

MacLeod: Oh, I see.

Smith: Called the Preston, and I decided to, because it was the approach he made, was not in the first instance suspicious, it was talking about a business venture. I had, I mentioned on the tape before being approached by companies before. I think I’m on a mailing list for that type of activity, people who are interested in setting up businesses, or approaching business ventures. But they tend to be pyramid selling, or people who want to get involved in time share, and all that sort of nonsense, so I tend not to follow them up. But this man seemed, seemed to be saying that

nothing like that was involved.

MacLeod: So what was the first conversation. Can you recall what that conversation, how it started off, and how did he introduce himself to you?

Smith: Well, he started by just, sort of, generally discussing the nature of the work at HRC. I didn’t really want to get involved too much in that, but he seemed to know more about it than he should have done, and based on that I listened to what he had to say.

MacLeod: And did you reach an understanding, there and then, that you were ...

Smith: No, I didn’t. I wasn’t, I was not convinced by his persuasive approach. I didn’t particularly want to get involved in anything like that, and I told him I didn’t think I’d be interested.

MacLeod: Mmm.

Smith: But he did, he did say, “well I’ll phone you back in a day or two and see if you can, if you want to reconsider”.

MacLeod: So what persuaded you to change your mind?

Smith: The way he presented it, was such that there was, there was no danger to me, because that was my first consideration. But he mentioned a client, who he didn’t name, would be interested in some activities at Hirst

Research Centre. I got the impression that it was more of a commercial, the level of commercial success that they’d had in certain fields, than to really have a whole package of information on one project.

MacLeod: So he wasn’t, what you’re saying, he didn’t specify what it was they were looking for?

Smith: At that stage he didn’t specify exactly what he was interested in, no.

MacLeod: So, more or less, asked you to do what? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but was it that he was expecting you to do a general trawl, or just to ...

Smith: No, no. I, he did mention a couple of specific things.

MacLeod: Oh, right.

Smith: He said, this was at the second meeting that we had.

MacLeod: Can you recall what those specific areas were?

Smith: He specifically seemed interested in micro-electronics, which at that time was not really being progressed at Hirst Research Centre. It was, it was dying, or already died, or moved to other sites, and I didn’t tell him that in detail, but I gave him the impression that yes, it was, it was still up and running there. And he said, “well, could you get me some information, and I’ll pay you some money”.

MacLeod: So it wasn’t, apart from him asking you, or tasking you to obtain information in relation to micro-electronics, just across a broad area, or was it in a specific ...

Smith: No, it wasn’t very specific at that stage. Micro-electronics seemed to be the thing he was interested in.

MacLeod: I see.

Smith: I suppose the silicon chip type of activity.

MacLeod: You say he wasn’t particularly specific at that stage. Did he become more specific?

Smith: He did as time went on, but I couldn’t provide him with the information he wanted, because it wasn’t available to me.

MacLeod: Do you mean, it wasn’t available to you because you didn’t have access to it, or it just, just didn’t exist?

Smith: It was, it was not available, because it was either in locked filing cabinets, it was in rooms which I didn’t have access to, or to parts of the company that I didn’t normally go to. I only had access to a limited amount of information, that was in my immediate vicinity.

MacLeod: Yes, that’s the point I was trying to make. I mean, that information was within the knowledge of the company?

Smith: That’s right.

MacLeod: Yeah. But the information that was, that you did have access to, what sort of information did you give him then?

Smith: Well, it was, as far as the company was concerned, it was in the public domain. It wasn’t restricted to any particular area, it was, they’re open documents that people could ask to see, to take away, they were in our internal library system, there was nothing locked away. So I didn’t have access to, to any restricted documents for instance.

MacLeod: So some of these documents, what you’re saying, was within the general domain?

Smith: Within the company, yes.

MacLeod: Within the company, but not within the public domain, is that ...

Smith: Not outside Hirst, of course, but the sort of documents that anybody within Hirst could go and look at.

MacLeod: Yeah.

Smith: Because they were there.

MacLeod: What sort of control was there over these, this information within the company. Were there any sort of instructions laid down, regarding the handling of this information?

Smith: No, it was, as I say, it was unclassified, and the only restriction was that it shouldn’t be given to outsiders, outside GEC.

MacLeod: So how often did you meet him?

Smith: It was approximately every 3 months.

MacLeod: Mmm. And was he paying you at the time? Obviously.

Smith: It was at the time, but not every time. I think, I think there were no more than about 8 meetings. But he probably paid me on no more than 5 occasions.

MacLeod: Mmm. And how much did that amount to altogether?

Smith: Well, this is what I was asked before. I don’t, I didn’t ever add it up.

MacLeod: No, no, but ...

Smith: Because it was coming in, in bits and pieces.

MacLeod: Approximately?

Smith: I would say in the region of £12,000.

MacLeod: That must obviously have been very important information to them, to have paid that kind of money to you?

Smith: I don’t know. I personally did not think it was important, because the information was either obsolete, certainly the documents I was giving him were not the current documents. In many cases, they were some old documents I had in my own filing cabinet, which I knew, I know were at least 1 or 2 issues out of date. I felt he was accepting them at face value, when in fact, I knew I was giving him something less than he thought he was getting.

MacLeod: But for that kind of arrangement to continue, one would have thought that they would have been aware of the value of the information, if it was out-dated. It suggests to me, that the information was information that was considered to be valuable to the end user.

Smith: Well, over this period of time, he was becoming increasingly frustrated with me for not giving him more useful information, and that’s what eventually terminated the relationship. He felt that I wasn’t, or couldn’t, give him any more useful information, because I’d actually exhausted everything I had, and likewise I didn’t really want to continue any longer either.

MacLeod: I think we all know who we are talking about, was he putting you under, sort of, undue pressure?

Smith: No, I don’t think I can say that. He was, the way he was presenting it was, that here was a good opportunity for you to make some extra cash for very little work.

MacLeod: Yes, easy cash, granted, and probably it was easy for you to obtain that. But did it not occur to you, it must have been considered to have been highly valuable, in whatever context, to the end-user?

Smith: I didn’t consider it valuable, not within the nature of the work that I’d seen. It was not that valuable, and I can’t, I honestly, I believe if you look at the sort of things going on elsewhere, in other countries like the States, Hirst Research work is 2 or 3 years behind, I think. In certain fields, and in this field particularly, GEC has pulled out of some technologies, because they just couldn’t compete, because the Americans and the Japanese are way ahead. So I felt, in a way, well, if GEC’s not very interested in funding it, then they can’t be very worried about it being valuable information.

MacLeod: Yes, I understand the point you’re making, but that information that you say that GEC, that information ceased to become valuable to GEC, this is what you’re saying, because the Americans and other competitors were producing a better quality product.

Smith: Or they had managed to overcome production problems. Mainly it’s a production problem, I think, in achieving good quality reliable results with high yields. Because in this field, I mean, it is very important to get a good output from the production facility, or individual integrated circuits are too expensive to buy. So we, in GEC, had achieved something like 1% yield, or something of that order, very low yields. In places like America, it’s, you know, 30%, 40%, 50%, I mean, they have it cracked, so I didn’t feel that what GEC was doing was particularly valuable in that context.

MacLeod: So, was the decision by GEC, to cease production of these systems, was the GEC decision, do you think, based on the financial costs?

Smith: It’s largely the fact, they didn’t ...

MacLeod: Rather than the validity of the information, or the quality of the systems?

Smith: No, they hadn’t resolved their technical problems, and because it would cost so much money to put it right. I think, the head of the company, Weinstock, has decided to cut his losses and get out, or rather, there’s been an amalgamation with Plessey, and I think they are now doing most of the work that Hirst used to do, and I’ve no knowledge of that because

I’ve never been there.

MacLeod: It still strikes me as odd, that they would carry on paying you large sums of money, for a product that was, if you like, out of date?

Smith: I wouldn’t. It may not have looked out of date, I think, that they didn’t find out that until later on, and probably realised it wasn’t as useful as. This is why I think it was, they were unhappy with what I gave them.

MacLeod: So, they were looking to you providing something better than you were producing?

Smith: Well, I think they always felt, maybe there would be something better coming along, but it didn’t happen.

MacLeod: So your relationship finished when? With this …

Smith: In April this year.

MacLeod: April this year. And where was the last meeting?

Smith: Where?

MacLeod: The last meeting. Where did you actually meet this man Harry?

MacLeod: It was in Harrow, I believe.

MacLeod: Can you remember whereabouts in Harrow?

Smith: In, in, on a pedestrian area.

MacLeod: Right. Did you ever meet him anywhere else, in that particular area?

Smith: In Harrow, no.

MacLeod: Oh well, I mean ...

Smith: Well, in South Harrow though ...

MacLeod: Yes.

Smith: … there’s a tube station at, I don’t know what the area’s called, but it’s in the South Harrow area, and I met him there in the street, by the shops in the shopping area.

MacLeod: So was it always in the shopping areas where you met, or did you meet him anywhere else?

Smith: He liked to meet in, sort of, public places, which didn’t look too conspicuous.

MacLeod: Mmm. So, if I can just recap. You met in Harrow, you met in South Harrow, I think you told the officers earlier on, that you, Sudbury Town?

Smith: I’m not. I can’t remember if that’s it, or Sudbury Hill, I’m not sure.

MacLeod: No, well, whatever. In the Sudbury area?

Smith: In Greenford Road.

MacLeod: Greenford, yes. In a moment, I’ll show you a map, because I’m quite interested in knowing where these meetings took place. But, before I do that, did all of these meetings take place within roughly a, sort of, if you like, a 2 to 3 mile radius of GEC?

Smith: Yes, it was all quite close to GEC.

MacLeod: And, these meetings were during the daytime, or evening?

Smith: On one occasion it was in the evening, on my way home from work. That was the first meeting, was in Sudbury Town.

MacLeod: And if you weren’t able to make a meeting, how would Harry know?

Smith: Well, it never arose. We never ...

MacLeod: Did Harry ever give you a contact number?

Smith: He didn’t, no.

MacLeod: So you ...

Smith: Well, I think Harry didn’t want me to know very much about him.

MacLeod: And you didn’t know what Harry’s surname was?

Smith: In fact, I don’t think Harry was his real name. I think it was just a name he used.

MacLeod: I am quite interested in this Harry. Can you just give me an idea of his description, I think you gave earlier on. He’s a man in his, what?

Smith: He’s about 50. I’m guessing he’s older than I am, but it’s difficult with age to say exactly how old. I think about 50.

MacLeod: And what sort of build would you say?

Smith: I’d say stocky, well built, with wide shoulders.

MacLeod: And the hair?

Smith: Greying. I can’t remember if he had any, it was like pepper and salt, and there was certainly quire a lot of grey in his hair. It was receding and swept back, combed back.

MacLeod: And what about the suit and the dress. What did he ...

Smith: He always seemed to wear a suit, but it wasn’t always the same one. But the one he wore mostly was a medium grey colour, with a sort of fleck in it, which made it ...

MacLeod: Yes, and was he tied, or was he opened necked?

Smith: He wore a tie. He looked quite professional.

MacLeod: So, on the face of it, he would appear like a professional man?

Smith: Yes.

MacLeod: Can you remember any description of the tie for example?

Smith: He always wore plain ties, but I ...

MacLeod: You can’t remember any detail?

Smith: It would have been plain blue, or black something. It wasn’t something that I’d particularly ...

MacLeod: It wasn’t striking?

Smith: No.

MacLeod: He didn’t wear this type of ...

Smith: Oh, nothing, no, no. He was very much a ...

MacLeod: Conservative?

Smith: Conservative type, yes.

MacLeod: Right. Ok. So, this whole business about the information that was being passed on from GEC. So far as you were concerned, it was information that was unclassified?

Smith: Certainly unclassified, and I didn’t regard any of it as being. I would expect any company who were in the same field, would at least be up to the level of what Hirst Research were doing.

MacLeod: Right. Hirst Research carry out, sort of, sub-contract work for the government?

Smith: That’s true.

MacLeod: Yes. What contracts would Hirst GEC, Hirst Research, correction, involved in when you were there, and what information relating to these contracts did you get?

Smith: Over the whole period?

MacLeod: Well, yes. I mean, well yes.

Smith: The main area for MoD contracts, to my knowledge, was in, I think we mentioned before, Arthur Dyer’s Laboratory, which is called Device Applications Laboratory. They carried out work on crystals and oscillators and SAW filters -S A W Filters - which are special, they are quite a specialist unit in this country, and at least one of the projects goes towards Trident, and other contracts go towards some MoD contracts, I know they have at the moment, but I’m not aware of what those contracts are, because I don’t actually go into that laboratory, apart from on a very limited basis.

MacLeod: But it was still within your access level to see that kind of information?

Smith: No, no, it was not. No, I, I had the feeling I was not allowed in there, because I was always shied away from it. The man on our side, who used to visit that area, was called Bill Tatham, who is an ex-MoD man from AQUILA. And he used to come one day a week, and he used to spend as a consultant, spend time in that laboratory doing work on the Trident and the oscillators, on behalf of the company.

MacLeod: And did you ever try to get access to that part of ...

Smith: Well, I had access. I could walk in and out of there. But the access I had, was purely on, sort of, general laboratory procedures. I didn’t discuss in any detail, because they wouldn’t want, in fact when I had some meetings with them, they said well we can’t discuss those things, so we didn’t really discuss anything technical on the projects.

MacLeod: So, as a quality audit manager, how would you have been able to carry out your work, without having access to those other ...

Smith: Because it’s not necessary in my work. I, I only look in general at things, and if specifics come up it’s usually in a very narrow part of the work, just to follow a line of audit enquiry, why did something happen, can you show a record of this, was that equipment calibrated that the test was done with. To follow it through in a microcosm, if you like, just to show that by taking a slice through the cake you can see there’s cherries all the way through it. I, that’s what it was for, not to show if I could understand, or react to everything that was being done in an area. Because

our audits, as I explained before, are rather short affairs, lasting certainly not more than 2 hours, and usually one to one and a half hours. In that time there just isn’t sufficient time to elaborate on anything.

MacLeod: This work, was that carried out by you, or did you have a team of people working for you?

Smith: Well, there was a team of auditors. I was the one who managed the programme, but there were 5 other auditors, including Bill Tatham. So, sometimes I would be the main auditor, sometimes it would be somebody else. We usually worked in pairs.

MacLeod: Had they, what do you think they would have thought, if they knew you were taking information out of the company?

Smith: I think they would be upset. That’s why I resisted actually declaring this to you yesterday.

MacLeod: The work that was being carried out on behalf of, or, the contract work that was being carried out in respect of Trident, were there any elements of that, that were carried out by the work under your control, albeit of an unclassified ...

Smith: On Trident. No, I never saw any documentation on Trident. It was all locked in one of the security cabinets in the documentation area. In fact, there was a very, quite a strict way of releasing that document to an individual, it had to be signed for, and it had to be agreed by the laboratory manager Arthur Dyer, that that person could have that document. And I didn’t have access to any of those documents.

MacLeod: What about the Rapier System?

Smith: I don’t believe that was part of the work with Hirst. I had never heard that before.

MacLeod: So you wouldn’t have access to the, any material relating to Rapier?

Smith: Well, I’m not sure that that work was carried on at Hirst. If it is, then I’m certainly not aware of it.

MacLeod: When Harry, When you met him on those occasions, was he generally, I know later on he became a little bit dissatisfied with what you were producing, but up to then, had he been reasonably satisfied with ...?

Smith: Well, in the early days he seemed to be, but I don’t know if he was just playing me along, and saying you’re doing a good job, but he never commented very much

in the early days. He just accepted the first couple of times.

MacLeod: Did he come with a list of things that he wanted you to do, or was it left to you to just to find out?

Smith: He did say, “could you give me a bit more information on such and such”, but I didn’t always come up with what he was asking. In many ways I just gave him what I saw, and not, I didn’t actually look very deeply, I must admit. I just took the easy path, well this is there, I’ll give him that, and if he wasn’t happy, as long as he gave me the money, I didn’t care.

MacLeod: But, obviously, it must have been considered of some value to him, because to obtain over the 2 year period information which they considered to be important enough to pay you £12,000, surely you would have to have ...

Smith: I say, I think it might have been £12,000, but I can’t be absolutely ...

MacLeod: Approximately, give or take a thousand pounds either way, but you would agree, it must have been considered to be fairly important?

Smith: Well, I don’t know, I really couldn’t judge that, because I don’t know who their client was, this client that Harry mentioned.

MacLeod: So this, those payments that you were receiving. Do I understand you correctly, that those were the monies that were being paid into your Building Society account, in cash payments?

Smith: No. I, I don’t, well I might have put some of it in that way, but most of it I spent as cash, that’s why I was embarrassed by the TSC quotation invoice.

MacLeod: Because, yes, I mean, you saw it earlier on today, and it showed regular payments, cash payments over a period of time, which we can’t reconcile with the monies, withdrawals, or credit transfers from your main account.

Smith: That’s correct.

MacLeod: So, I mean ...

Smith: This is the point I’m making. Is that this money was the money which I was spending, which wasn’t coming up on my account.

MacLeod: Yes. Right. Ok. And, I have to say, it’s this man Harry I’m particularly interested to know a bit more about. Did Harry ever have a car, how did you actually meet?

Smith: I never saw Harry with a car. He was, I always met him in the street. I presumed either he came by public transport, or he left a car somewhere nearby.

Beels: Ok. The tape is now coming to an end. I am just going to switch off the machine. The time is 5:55 pm.

INTERVIEW 14 ~ TAPE 26

INTERVIEW 14 ~ TAPE 27