A British man who would “dream about being like James Bond” was jailed on Friday for seven years after trying to spy for Russia.
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Howard Phillips, 65, was found guilty in July for trying to pass information about former defence secretary Grant Shapps, whom he knew, to two men who he believed were Russian intelligence agents.
However, the “agents” were undercover British intelligence agents.
“You were prepared to betray your country for money,” Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb told Phillips at his sentencing hearing at Winchester Crown Court, in the south of England.
The judge said that Phillips had “a personality with narcissistic tendencies and an overblown sense of his own importance”.
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The trial heard that Phillips intended to assist Russian agents between the end of 2023 and May 2024 – Shapps was defence secretary between August 2023 and July 2024 when his Conservative Party was ousted from power and he lost his seat in parliament at the general election.