A retired insolvency worker devised a plot to leak the personal details of the then defence secretary, Grant Shapps, to Russian intelligence after claiming to have been invited to the politician’s home and met him three times, a court has heard.
Howard Phillips, 65, was in the process of applying for a job with the UK Border Force when he was approached by undercover officers who were posing as Russian agents called Dima and Sasha, the court heard.
Phillips, from Harlow in Essex, boasted that he had “useful” information on Shapps, who was his local MP in the constituency of Welwyn Hatfield at the time he claimed they had met, jurors were told.
The defendant was arrested in May 2024 and charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service. He denies the charge and is standing trial at Winchester crown court.
The court was told that in meetings with the “Russian agents” that were secretly recorded, Phillips said he did not want to return to a “normal” nine-to-five job and came up with the idea of “offering services” to the Russian intelligence services after a trip to Moscow.
Phillips said he wanted the agents and him to be a “family” and said they could all “help each other”, the court heard.
He later handed the undercover officers a bag containing a USB stick with Shapps’ details on it, including his home address, phone number and location of his private plane, the court heard.
One of the undercover officers, who is employed by the Security Service, gave evidence from behind a curtain on Thursday. He was known to Phillips as Dima and spoke to him in recordings with a fake Russian accent, the court heard.
At a meeting at London Bridge hotel with the fake agents, Phillips told them he retired from insolvency work five years ago and went travelling afterwards, visiting cities including Moscow, the jury heard. He said he had found himself in a position “where now I need to be earning money”.
“I do not want and cannot for myself go back into the normal nine-to-five office. It’s not for me, it never was for me, but I did it,” he is said to have told them.
The trial heard details of early communications Phillips had with the agents before they met in person.
The trial continues.
