Two men have pleaded not guilty to breaching the National Security Act by assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service.

Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 39; and Chung Biu Yuen, 64; denied the charges against them when they appeared at the Old Bailey on Thursday.

Both defendants pleaded not guilty to assisting a foreign intelligence service between December 20 2023 and May 2 2024.

The charge alleges that Wai and Yuen agreed to undertake information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception.

They pleaded not guilty to a second charge of foreign interference on May 1 2024.

The charge alleges that the defendants forced entry into a UK residential address, being reckless as to whether the prohibited conduct, or course of conduct of which it forms part, would have an interference effect.

Wai had also pleaded not guilty to a third charge of misconduct in a public office between September 16 2022 and May 2 2024.

The charge alleges that while working as a UK Border Force Officer he “wilfully misconducted himself by conducting searches of Home Office databases available to him in his role as a public officer without justification for doing so”.

Wai, of Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey; and Yuen, of Hackney, east London; were charged with the offences under the National Security Act following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.

The pair were originally charged alongside former Royal Marine, Matthew Trickett, who was an immigration enforcement officer and private investigator from Maidenhead, Berkshire.

His case was discontinued after he was found dead in Grenfell Park, Maidenhead, after a report from a member of the public on May 19.

During Thursday’s hearing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb confirmed the two remaining defendants’ trial would take place on March 10 2025.

She set a further pre-trial hearing for Wai and Yuen on February 14 and granted the defendants continued conditional bail.