A retired police officer accused of running a spy ring for the Chinese government has claimed “I’m quite a boring guy you know – that’s my character”.
Billy Yuen, 64, denied acting as a Chinese agent and told investigators he only returned to work because his wife was fed up of having him around the house.
“Hand on my heart, I have nothing to hide,” he added.
Yuen, from Dalston, east London, is accused of running the spy ring from the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Bedford Square, central London.
The Old Bailey has heard he allegedly “tasked” Peter Wai, 39, from Staines, Surrey, who worked as a UK Border Force officer, to conduct surveillance on dissidents in the UK and chase down a £16m debt owed to a Chinese businesswoman.
However, Yuen told police that he loved the UK and that he had worked for the former Royal Hong Kong Police Force for 37 years.
“I myself actually established a very close link with UK. If you ask me which place you love more, I love UK. I’m not telling you lies,” Yuen told police after his arrest.
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“If you ask me, I like Hong Kong but if you ask me to balance, I like here the most.”
He sent his daughter to study in Britain in 2009 and his son in 2012, who was joined by his wife.
When he retired in 2015, Yuen joined them, he said. He had a pension of around £4,600 a month and still owned a property in Hong Kong so he did not need to work, he explained.
“But only my wife, well she [was] not used to seeing me doing nothing at home and therefore forced me to go out and get a job.”
Yuen told her “no-one would hire me” but she spotted an advert in a free newspaper in Chinatown for an office manager at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO).
His job as the “administrative division head” was to run the office in a 266-year-old building on Bedford Square, recruit staff and run the finances, Yuen told the officers.
In Hong Kong, he had risen to be a superintendent in the police, working in the Marine headquarters and then developing technology for the traffic unit.
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He had met Peter Wai after leaving a restaurant in Chinatown where he was having lunch or dinner with a friend who said: “Stop there, he’s your same business.”
Wai, who acted as a special constable for City of London Police, claimed he was a superintendent and Yuen thought “wow, police superintendent, well you’re young, young and promising”.
Wai told him he also ran a “security consultancy business” and Yuen employed him to provide close protection security for the HKETO and they became friends, he said.
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Yuen and Wai deny assisting the Chinese intelligence service by agreeing to undertake information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception, under the National Security Act 2023.
Wai also denies misconduct in public office by conducting searches of Home Office databases without justification.
The trial continues.
