Wang Yam was convicted in 2009 of the murder of 86-year-old Allan Chappelow at his home in north London

A Chinese dissident and MI6 informant has lost a long battle to overturn his conviction for murder after two trials during which his entire defence was heard in secret.

The case was referred to the appeal court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) when a witness provided new evidence after reading an article in the Guardian.

Wang Yam was convicted at the Old Bailey in 2009 of the murder of Allan Chappelow, a reclusive and wealthy author and photographer.

The government claimed it was necessary to hold his trial in secret to protect national security. It is believed to be the first murder trial in which a secrecy order was imposed for such a reason.

It is understood that MI6 strongly argued throughout the case that the evidence should never be disclosed.

The appeal court judgment was made by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas, who retired on Friday – this was the last judgment handed down in his name – sitting with Mr Justice Sweeney and Mrs Justice May.

They said there was no basis, in their view, to believe “the new evidence would or might reasonably have affected the jury’s decision in this case”.

Chappelow, 86, was found dead in his crumbling home near Hampstead Heath in June 2006 after police had been alerted by his bank following some suspicious transactions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Allan Chappelow’s home in Hampstead, the scene of his murder. Photograph: Rex

He had been savagely battered and had been dead for some time. Use of his stolen credit cards was traced to Yam, who lived nearby. He was later arrested in Switzerland.

At his trial in 2008, the prosecution suggested that Yam must have been confronted by Chappelow when stealing from his postbox and could have then entered the house and killed him.

He was convicted of theft and fraud and jailed for four and a half years, but the jury could not reach a decision on the murder charge.

At a second trial, the following year, he was convicted of murder and jailed for a minimum of 20 years.



In July this year, the court of appeal heard evidence from a new witness, which would have had a “dramatic impact on the jury” in his trial, according to his counsel, Peter Wilcock QC.



Jonathan Bean, who lived a few doors from the murdered man, told the court that soon after the murder and when Yam was already in custody, he had heard a rustling noise at his front door and saw “a glimpse of a knife”.

The intruder told him: “Do not call the police or we will kill your wife and baby.” He added: “I was completely terrified because in my mind my neighbour had recently been killed in similar circumstances.”



He called the police and moved his family to stay with friends. This information was never passed to Yam’s defence team.



After reading an article in the Guardian about the case in 2014, Bean gave a statement to Yam’s lawyers. As a result, the CCRC investigated the case and referred it to the appeal court.



Another new witness, Peter Hall, told the appeal court that he was a regular visitor to “the spanking bench” on Hampstead Heath and had seen a man he believed to be Chappelow there frequently over a number of years until shortly before his death.



He said he had known him only as “Alan”. On two occasions he had seen him leave with young men and he had also been asked by him to go back to his home but had declined.



After the murder, he told the court, he recognised the photo of Chappelow but had not taken any action as he believed that the police had already arrested the killer.

It was only after the case had been reopened that he made contact with Yam’s lawyers.



The court had also heard that there were signs in the house that a stranger had been there. There were cigarette butts, a footprint that did not match either the victim or Yam and a copy of the Daily Mail, a paper Chappelow’s friends said he never read.



There was also a sleeping-bag that appeared to have been used. No DNA, fingerprint or footprint evidence linked the scene to Yam, but it was clear that someone other than Chappelow had been in the house around the time of the murder.



The judges said the “key connection” the prosecution relied on was between the use of Chappelow’s handset and sim card and Yam’s attempts to access and mine Chappelow’s various bank accounts and the murder itself.

“Many actions of the person using, or attempting to use, the deceased’s identity can only be explained or understood if done by someone who knew of the death and with an interest in delaying discovery of it,” the judges added in a ruling handed down on Friday.

The trial jury “clearly concluded that the web of activity undertaken by [Yam] in relation to deceased’s identity and accounts was so thoroughly interwoven with the murder itself that he, and only he, could have been responsible for the latter,” they said.

They said they could not find any respect in which the new evidence from three new witnesses “could have disrupted or diluted the unique connection between the appellant [Yam] and the murder established by that web of evidence”.



Wang, 56, a grandson of Chairman Mao Zedong’s third-in-command, was a research assistant in the Chinese nuclear weapons research institute. He fled China via Hong Kong and was granted refugee status in Britain in 1992. It is accepted that he was an MI6 informant.

In advance of his trial in 2008, Jacqui Smith, then Labour home secretary, signed public interest immunity certificates to prohibit reporting of the case. Later the then foreign secretary William Hague claimed there would be “a real risk of serious harm to an important public interest” if Wang was allowed to disclose evidence heard in secret.

Wang Yam intended to reveal the “full story” of his relationship with MI6, he told the Guardian after the ruling.

Speaking on the telephone from Lowdham Grange prison near Nottingham, he said: “I cannot get justice in the UK . . . It is a total cover-up for mistakes.” It was the government that put national security at risk, he said.

He added: “I will publish details of how I worked for MI6”. He said he would publish them in Hong Kong and the US. He would also pass on information about how he worked on behalf of the UK to the “Chinese president’s desk”. He said he had “a way to do it”.

Yam said he would pursue his case at the European Court of Human Rights and immediately contact his relations and contacts in China and Hong Kong.