Man jailed for seven years after sharing Grant Shapps’ details with ‘Russian spies’ | Crime

A man convicted of assisting a foreign intelligence service after passing personal information about then defense secretary Grant Shapps to two undercover officers he believed were Russian agents has been jailed for seven years.

Howard Phillips, 66, was convicted in July after jurors heard he asked for “easy money” when offering his services to undercover cops known as Dima and Sasha.

The hearing heard Phillips, of Harlow in Essex, handed one of the officers a USB stick containing details about Shapps, including his home address and the location of his private plane. He told the jury he was Jewish and, as the local MP for the Welwyn Hatfield constituency, met Shapps at a synagogue.

Phillips, who told fake Russian agents that he was retired and operating in bankruptcy, was arrested in May 2024 and charged under the National Security Act.

Sentencing him at Winchester crown court, the judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, said: “You were prepared to betray your country for money. I convict you not on ideological grounds but on the grounds that you were motivated by money.”

“You took a huge risk and did not care how much damage you caused. With the deliberate work of the security services, you were caught without material assistance to a foreign intelligence agency and the danger was averted.”

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Shapps said she was “shocked” when informed of Phillips’ activities and feared for her family’s safety.

“He chose to take whatever information he had and attempted to sell it to a foreign intelligence service, thus immorally putting myself, my family and ultimately the country at risk,” Shapps said in a statement. he said.

“My personal information provided by Mr Phillips is extremely sensitive and I can say again that any disclosure would put myself and my family at very real and serious risk.

“What is unacceptable is that one person’s reckless behavior has exposed my entire family to extremely serious risks from the activities of a foreign intelligence service.

“The UK has enough work to do to deal with external threats; it’s shocking that someone in the neighborhood thought it was a good idea to try to sell information about the UK defense minister to a hostile foreign state.”

In court, Phillips claimed that he was trying to “expose” Russian spies and that he hoped to pass information about Russian spies to Israel because he believed it would be “beneficial” to the state.

The defendant’s ex-wife, Amanda Phillips, told the court during the hearing that she “dreamed of being like James Bond” and had watched films about MI5 and MI6 and “fell in love with it”.

He was struggling financially and in the process of applying for a job with the UK Border Force when he was approached by undercover officers. He had written to the Russian embassy to offer his services.

In March 2024, while the job application was live and pre-employment checks were taking place, Phillips exchanged emails with undercover officers who he believed were Russian intelligence officers.

Phillips agreed to provide them with a document on a USB stick explaining what he could offer by placing it on the exposed seat of a bike on a corner of Polygon Road in London’s St Pancras and Euston district.

In May that year, undercover officers met Phillips at a Costa Coffee in West Thurrock and Phillips told them he could give them Shapps’ personal information.