British spies and their agents can kill in the line of duty without fear of prosecution as long as they persuade police and prosecutors it was in the public interest, the High Court has ruled.

Senior judges decided that the Security Service does not have - and never has had - immunity from prosecution if its operatives kill or commit other serious criminal offences.

Their majority ruling states that MI5 officials and agents would face the consequences of the law for such actions.

It goes on to state, however, that they can still argue before the prosecuting authorities that they should not be convicted of a crime as they were acting in a justified manner and what they did was in the public interest.

However the judges issued an unprecedented divided ruling, with two of the five concluding there was no legal basis for MI5’s authorisation of participation in crime and it could lead to an abuse of power.