Who was Matthew Trickett? Death of suspect in Hong Kong-UK spying row sparks questions about his past
- Ex-Royal Marine, 37, found dead on Sunday in public park only a kilometre away from his company’s address, week after being charged in spying row
- Security consultant also worked in for UK Border Force, Home Office Immigration Enforcement and had access to ‘secure computer systems’
Ex-Royal Marine Matthew Trickett, 37, was found dead on Sunday in a public park in Maidenhead, Berkshire, only a kilometre (0.6 miles) away from the registered address of one of his companies.
British police revealed the “unexplained death” on Tuesday and appealed to anyone with information to contact them.
Trickett was one of three men charged last week with assisting an overseas intelligence service and foreign interference under the British National Security Act.
The group were accused of carrying out surveillance against Hong Kong activists living in the UK.
Trickett was granted bail after he appeared in court on May 13.
Media outlets reported on Tuesday that prosecutor Kashif Mali had told the judge that the ex-Royal Marine had implied he might take his own life when he spoke to custody sergeants.
UK police are still investigating Trickett’s death and a postmortem is to be carried out.
Trickett served in the Royal Marines, an elite special operations regiment, between February 2007 and March 2013.
He later worked at London’s Heathrow Airport as part of the UK Border Force and joined the country’s Home Office Immigration Enforcement section in February.
Prosecutors handling the spying case said the defendant’s job allowed him access to “secure computer systems”.
Documents from Companies House, an executive agency under the UK government that maintains a register of businesses, named a “Matthew Peter Trickett” as sole director of MTR Consultancy Limited, which was incorporated in April 2021.
His occupation was listed as a security consultant.
The documents revealed the registered address for the business was the same as Trickett’s correspondence address before it changed to a location in Maidenhead in February 2023.
The company address was about a kilometre from the public park where the ex-Royal Marine was found dead on Sunday.
The papers also listed MTR Consultancy’s business as “private security activities”. Filings showed the company’s net assets stood at £429 (HK$4,254) in April last year.
A “Matthew Peter Trickett”, whose year of birth was listed as 1987, also appeared in Companies House documents as a director of D5 Consultancy Services Limited between March 15 and April 23 this year.
The correspondence address was on City Road in London.
The only other D5 Consultancy Services director to appear in the document is a “Daisy Ng Man Ching”, whose correspondence address is listed as a public housing unit in Hong Kong.
She is also listed as a director of FS Solutions and Consultancy Limited, which was incorporated on March 29.
