Briton who volunteered as spy for Russia jailed

A city worker who "dreamt about being like James Bond" but volunteered to spy for Russia when he ran out of money has been jailed for seven years.

Howard Phillips, 66, from Harlow, Essex, told two officers posing as Russian agents he wanted to work in intelligence to avoid a "nine-to-five" office job after clearing out his savings. He also handed over the home address and landline for Sir Grant Shapps, his local MP and then the defence secretary, during the undercover MI5 sting.

Phillips was found guilty in July of assisting what he believed to be Russian intelligence service agents, in breach of the National Security Act. Now he's been jailed for seven years after offering to provide logistical support for Russian agents across the world in the increasingly desperate hope it would bail him out of his money worries.

Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court, Justice Cheema-Grubb told him: "You were prepared to betray your country for money. I sentence you on the basis you are not ideologically driven but motivated by money.

"You took a grave risk and didn't care what damage you caused. Through the deliberate work of the security services, you were caught before providing material assistance to a foreign intelligence service, so the danger was averted." In a victim impact statement, Sir Grant said he had welcomed Phillips into his home after moving to the area in 2002.

"I feel it has been a complete breach of trust by Mr Phillips," he said. "He chose to take whatever information he had and attempted to sell it to a foreign intelligence service thereby, wantonly, putting myself, my family and ultimately the country at risk.

"The UK has enough to do dealing with external threats, it's shocking to find that someone in the neighbourhood would think it a good idea to try to sell information about the UK defence secretary to an unfriendly foreign state." 'Connections in high places' In letters intercepted by MI5, Phillips also volunteered his services to the Russians, the Iranians, and the Chinese. In WhatsApp messages, he masqueraded as David Marshall - "a British citizen, born in the UK to British parents" with "several situations of utmost benefit to convey and offer".

Read more:Unmasked: The 18 Russian spies mounting attacks on UKMI6 launches new drive to recruit spies - including Russians He further boasted of having "connections in high places". In an elaborate undercover operation, two MI5 agents adopting Russian accents posed as members of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the SVR.

Phillips had never heard of the organisation. The would-be spy was then asked to prepare a document explaining how he could assist Russian intelligence and deliver it to London on a USB stick on 4 April last year.

On 26 April, he met the MI5 agents, who called themselves "Sasha" and "Dima.