MI6 "held back spy's belongings"

MI6 failed to hand over a lot of Gareth Williams's belongings during Scotland Yard's painstaking investigation into the spy's death mystery, an inquest heard today.

Detectives discovered only yesterday that secret services found computer memory sticks in his office and a North Face holdall like the one Mr Williams was found in.

MI6 also searched the spy's "electronic media" without telling police, the officer leading the inquiry said.

Family lawyer Anthony O'Toole asked Detective Chief Inspector Jackie Sebire if she should have been told about the belongings in 2010.

Ms Sebire told Westminster Coroner's Court: "I would have expected to have been told."

She added that she had no knowledge of the existence of memory sticks in his cabinet at work.

"What I knew was that Gareth's email accounts had been checked but I did not know that other media had been checked," Ms Sebire said.

She said she was "not surprised" that Mr Williams had left memory sticks at his office, "given his line of work".

The inquest is hearing its last day's evidence about the 31-year-old's death in August 2010.

He was found naked, curled up in a padlocked holdall in the bath of his flat in Pimlico, central London.

Pathologists said yesterday that he would have suffocated within three minutes after getting inside the bag.

Poisoning and asphyxiation are the "foremost contenders" in solving the death riddle.