Sir William Charters Patey, KCMG (born 11 July 1953)[1] is a British retired diplomat.

[1][3] He retired from HM Diplomatic Service in April 2012 and was replaced by Sir Richard Stagg, formerly British High Commissioner to India.

Patey gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry on 24 November 2009 and 5 January 2010.

[5] He joined the consultancy Control Risks as Government and International Relations Adviser in July 2012 and became a Executive Director of HSBC Bank Middle East on 10 July 2012.

[8] Justifying British support for, and arms sales to, serial human rights violators in the Middle East in November 2012—that is, even in the face of the Arab Spring—Patey said, "The people in the Gulf will say, 'you of all people should understand why evolutionary change is better than revolutionary change'," referring to European revolutions.