An Essex man has been jailed for seven years after making an attempt to assist two ‘Russian brokers’ get details about former defence secretary Sir Grant Shapps.
66-year-old Howard Phillips, from Harlow, had lengthy dreamt of being a spy like James Bond – and tried to assist what he thought have been two Russian brokers, ‘Sasha’ and ‘Dima’.
However the two brokers have been truly undercover British intelligence officers. A jury discovered Phillips responsible of helping a overseas intelligence service below the Nationwide Safety Act.
A trial heard how Phillips meant to help the 2 Russians from the tip of 2023 till Might 2024.
Phillips supplied to go on Sir Grant’s contact particulars in addition to the placement the place he stored his personal airplane to ‘facilitate the Russians in listening to British defence plans’.
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In a sufferer influence assertion learn to the court docket, Sir Grant, who was the defence secretary on the time, mentioned that he was ‘shocked’ when he was briefed on Phillips’ actions and anxious for the protection of his household.
Sir Grant mentioned that he recalled going to dinner on the house of Phillips when he moved to the world in 2002 and added: ‘I really feel it has been an entire breach of belief by Mr Phillips. He selected to take no matter data he had and tried to promote it to a overseas intelligence service, placing myself, my household and finally the nation in danger.
‘What’s unacceptable is one particular person’s reckless behaviour exposing my complete household to the extraordinarily critical dangers that come from a overseas intelligence service’s actions.’
Sir Grant added that the UK has ‘sufficient’ to cope with by way of exterior threats, and to think about one in every of his neighbours would help one was surprising.
Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court docket, Decide Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb instructed him: ‘You have been ready to betray your nation for cash. I sentence you on the idea you aren’t ideologically pushed however motivated by cash.
‘You took a grave danger and didn’t care what harm you induced. By means of the deliberate work of the safety companies, you have been caught earlier than offering materials help to a overseas intelligence service, so the hazard was averted.’
The decide mentioned that Phillips had ‘a character with narcissistic tendencies and an overblown sense of his personal significance’.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC mentioned Phillips was motivated by cash, which led to him providing his ‘100% loyalty and dedication’.
Jeremy Dein KC, defending, described Phillips as ‘eccentric’, ‘zany’ and a ‘fantasist’ earlier than including that he was ‘proudly British, pro-western, proudly Jewish’.
‘This was an ageing man whose life had collapsed, who was clearly not pondering straight and was determined for cash. He had been dwelling in his automotive at one stage, and all the pieces was out of sync with the hard-working and devoted life he had lived,’ he mentioned.
‘There’s nothing to counsel that, pondering straight, Mr Phillips would have wished to undermine the UK.’
The defendant’s ex-wife, Amanda Phillips, instructed the court docket throughout the trial that he ‘would dream about being like James Bond’, and that he watched movies to do with MI5 and MI6 as he was ‘infatuated’.
Phillips beforehand claimed he had contacted the Russian embassy in early 2024 in a bid to trace and expose Russian brokers to help Israel.
He instructed jurors he knew the brokers weren’t truly Russian, however carried on to ‘take a look at the waters’.
Safety minister Dan Jarvis mentioned: ‘Those that provide their companies to overseas powers searching for to undermine the UK might be stopped – our nationwide safety shouldn’t be on the market.
‘The Nationwide Safety Act provides us the instruments to detect, disrupt, and deter trendy threats to the UK, together with makes an attempt to help hostile exercise by state actors.’
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