An Essex man has been jailed for seven years after trying to help two ‘Russian agents’ get information about former defence secretary Sir Grant Shapps.
66-year-old Howard Phillips, from Harlow, had long dreamt of being a spy like James Bond – and tried to help what he thought were two Russian agents, ‘Sasha’ and ‘Dima’.
But the two agents were actually undercover British intelligence officers. A jury found Phillips guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service under the National Security Act.
A trial heard how Phillips intended to assist the two Russians from the end of 2023 until May 2024.
Phillips offered to pass on Sir Grant’s contact details as well as the location where he kept his private plane to ‘facilitate the Russians in listening to British defence plans’.
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In a victim impact statement read to the court, Sir Grant, who was the defence secretary at the time, said that he was ‘shocked’ when he was briefed on Phillips’ activities and concerned for the safety of his family.
Sir Grant said that he recalled going to dinner at the home of Phillips when he moved to the area in 2002 and added: ‘I feel it has been a complete breach of trust by Mr Phillips. He chose to take whatever information he had and attempted to sell it to a foreign intelligence service, putting myself, my family and ultimately the country at risk.
‘What is unacceptable is one individual’s reckless behaviour exposing my entire family to the extremely serious risks that come from a foreign intelligence service’s activities.’
Sir Grant added that the UK has ‘enough’ to deal with in terms of external threats, and to imagine one of his neighbours would assist one was shocking.
Sentencing him at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Mrs 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.’
The judge said that Phillips had ‘a personality with narcissistic tendencies and an overblown sense of his own importance’.
Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward KC said Phillips was motivated by money, which led to him offering his ‘100% loyalty and dedication’.
Jeremy Dein KC, defending, described Phillips as ‘eccentric’, ‘zany’ and a ‘fantasist’ before adding that he was ‘proudly British, pro-western, proudly Jewish’.
‘This was an ageing man whose life had collapsed, who was clearly not thinking straight and was desperate for money. He had been living in his car at one stage, and everything was out of sync with the hard-working and dedicated life he had lived,’ he said.
‘There is nothing to suggest that, thinking straight, Mr Phillips would have wanted to undermine the United Kingdom.’
The defendant’s ex-wife, Amanda Phillips, told the court during the trial that he ‘would dream about being like James Bond’, and that he watched films to do with MI5 and MI6 as he was ‘infatuated’.
Phillips previously claimed he had contacted the Russian embassy in early 2024 in a bid to track and expose Russian agents to assist Israel.
He told jurors he knew the agents weren’t actually Russian, but carried on to ‘test the waters’.
Security minister Dan Jarvis said: ‘Those who offer their services to foreign powers seeking to undermine the UK will be stopped – our national security is not for sale.
‘The National Security Act gives us the tools to detect, disrupt, and deter modern threats to the UK, including attempts to assist hostile activity by state actors.’
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