A former head of MI6 has said he believes the coronavirus pandemic started as an accident" when the virus escaped from a laboratory in China. Sir Richard Dearlove ... pointed to a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team who claim to have discovered clues within Covid-19's genetic sequence suggesting key elements were "inserted" and may not have evolved naturally. In their paper, the scientists claim to have identified "inserted sections placed on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike surface" that explain how the virus binds itself to human cells. "The SARS-CoV-2 spike is significantly different from any other Sars that we have studied," the paper says. Two laboratories in Wuhan studying bat coronaviruses the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control have been suggested as the possible true sources of the outbreak. Sir Richard suggested scientists may have been conducting secret gene-splicing experiments on bat coronaviruses when Covid-19 somehow escaped. Sir Richard said he did not believe the Chinese had released the virus deliberately, but accused Beijing of subsequently covering up the scale of its spread. Last month, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, claimed there was "enormous evidence" that the coronavirus outbreak originated in a Chinese laboratory, but did not provide any proof. However, the US National Intelligence Director's office later said it had determined that Covid-19 "was not manmade".