UK man jailed for offering then-defence minister's information to Russian 'spies'

LONDON (Reuters) -A British man who offered then-defence minister Grant Shapps' personal information to purported Russian spies was jailed on Friday for assisting a foreign intelligence service.

Howard Phillips offered Shapps' home address and phone number to two people he believed were Russian agents using the names "Sasha" and "Dima" who were in fact British undercover officers, prosecutors said.

The 66-year-old denied one count of engaging in conduct intended to materially assist a foreign intelligence service, claiming he was trying to "trap and expose a foreign agent".

But he was convicted under the National Security Act in July after a trial at Winchester Crown Court.

Shapps said in a statement read to the court on his behalf that he was "shocked" when he was told that his personal information had been offered to apparent foreign intelligence.

Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb jailed Phillips for seven years, telling him: "You were prepared to betray your country for money."

MONEY THE MOTIVE, NOT IDEOLOGY

Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said Phillips' "principal motive appears to have been financial" and that there was no evidence Phillips "had any wider ideological support for Russia".

Phillips, who had applied for a job with the UK Border Force, was in 2024 asked to say what he could offer by saving a file on USB stick and hiding it in a bicycle on a London street.

He later met "Dima" in May 2024, saying he knew Shapps' home address and telephone number and the location of his private plane as he had visited Shapps' house.

His lawyer Jeremy Dein said Phillips had been "foolish" and was essentially a fantasist, but a life-long British patriot.

Cheema-Grubb, however, said Phillips was "an intelligent man with a distorted concept of his own significance", who had not accepted that "he was willing to behave in a dishonourable and treacherous way".

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Alex Richardson)