A British businessman murdered by the wife of disgraced top mainland politician Bo Xilai had informed on the couple for over a year to his country's spy agency, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper said Neil Heywood shared details based on his unusually close access to the powerful couple, the paper said, citing his friends and current and former British officials. The revelation that Mr Heywood was murdered brought down Mr Bo and revealed rifts among top leaders as they negotiated a once-in-a-decade power handover set to take place this month. "He had been knowingly providing information about the Bo family to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, for more than a year," the report said. It said Mr Heywood became close to the family in the 1990s when Mr Bo was mayor of the northeastern city of Dalian. He was found dead in November last year in the southwestern city of Chongqing, which Mr Bo ran at the time. Mr Heywood drove a silver Jaguar with the licence plate "007", the Journal said. Mr Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was given a suspended death sentence in August for poisoning Mr Heywood.