What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
Is it only because it would "look bad on MI5" if people like that worked there? Seems like such a trivial thing to immediately take a stand against and get rid of as soon as you notice it, rather than trying to hide
> What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
The continued loyalty of their other employees, a significant proportion of whom also enjoy using their MI5 role as a tool of coercion?
The most “sane” explanation is that revealing his identity would compromise ongoing operations.
Something like someone who did know him as his secret identity would see his face, hear his association with MI5 and go “Wow Dude! Turns out ‘Niegel from Birmingham’ wasn’t really ‘Niegel’ at all! Didn’t he introduce us to Tommy as his old childhood friend? Maybe we shouldn’t trust Tommy anymore either. In fact why don’t we dangle Tommy from his ankles until he confesses?” So revealing that this miscreant is MI5 could put the life of other agents in danger too.
Or alternatively it can be about protecting some method. Like this terrible person introduced a bunch of criminals to a “secure chat” application, and you don’t want them to think it is not as secure as they think. (Obviously the names and particulars are wild guesses with no basis in reality.)
Not saying it is a great argument, but that is how these kind of agencies think sometimes.
The combination of being ready to forgive "good people", and ready to consider the enemies of "good people" your enemies too, can be horrifying – and yet, it feels incredibly righteous in the moment. (Related story: a lay preacher was a stalker, and the Bishop of Leicester helped retaliate against the victim. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3velqy9rzo)
Or perhaps that person knows too much, so it is better to swipe it under the rug. They will probably eventually attempt to disassociate themselves from him, through any means necessary.
> What could MI5 possibly stand to gain from hiding a person who is described as "a violent misogynist abuser with paedophilic tendencies who had used his MI5 role as a tool of coercion"?
Because people like that are useful to get inside organisations full of other evil people and prevent those organisations doing even worse things.
probably the same thing that happened in the church or other organisations. bad people are able to convince others to do small things to help them, then once it surfaces what they are doing they are able to convince their enablers that their fates are tied together. from that point they are able to coerce their enablers into making bigger violations to protect them and and it becomes increasingly difficult to defect against them.
The MI5, like every other secret service, wants their members to feel part of a brotherhood and to never ever divulge any secret to anyone outside the group. They also want their agents to be utterly loyal to their superiors, and to trust them that any despicable thing they may be asked to do is done in service of some greater good, or that at least it serves their own interests.
All of these things together make it so that the immediate reaction to any apparent wrongdoing is to close ranks, tell nothing to outsiders like the police or prosecutors until some boss decides otherwise. And that boss will of course weigh any such decision against the risk that any minute secret might be revealed in an investigation, that any agent might lose a tiny bit of confidence, etc - and likely will brush it off and apply some paltry administrative penalty then move on.
Is it only because it would "look bad on MI5" if people like that worked there? Seems like such a trivial thing to immediately take a stand against and get rid of as soon as you notice it, rather than trying to hide