Embassy guard who ‘hates Britain’ admits spying for Russians
A DISGRUNTLED security guard has admitted spying for Moscow while working for a British embassy.
David Ballantyne Smith, 58, is said to have been driven by an intense hatred for his own country and wanted to live in Russia or Ukraine at the time he passed on secret intelligence from May 2020.
Despite living beyond his means, €800 in cash was found at his home in Potsdam in Germany when he was arrested in August last year.
Prosecutors alleged he had wanted to hurt the UK and the British Embassy in Berlin where he had worked for eight years.
Photographs of his living room subsequently published displayed Russian memorabilia, including a military cap.
On his bookshelf were volumes on history and a novel by John le Carre, who wrote ColdWar spy thrillers.
At an Old Bailey plea hearing, Smith, now of no fixed address, admitted eight charges under the Official Secrets Act by committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state. The extent of his activities were set out in the charges laid against him.
The first count stated he had communicated with General Major Sergey Chukhurov, the Russian military attache based out of its embassy in the German capital in 2020.
In it, he gave information about the activities, identities, addresses and numbers of civil servants as well as the operation and layout of the British Embassy, said to be useful to “an enemy, namely the Russian state”.
On August 5 last year, he collected unauthorised photocopies of documents provided by a person known as Dmitry as well as SIM card packaging.
On that day and August 6, he collected CCTV recordings of Dmitry which was said to be “useful to an enemy, namely the Russian State”.
On the day of his arrest on suspicion of spying for Russia, Smith had left work early complaining he was feeling ill, only to be met by police in Potsdam.
His electronic devices revealed embassy footage and a draft letter to a Russian military attache dated May 14, 2020.
In it, he confirmed he worked there and wanted anonymity as he offered a book classified as “official-sensitive”.
There were pictures of security passes and personal information,
“secret” classified emails and documents, posters and whiteboards.
Smith’s guilty pleas last week can only now be reported since the Crown indicated it would not seek a trial on a ninth count the defendant had denied. His lawyer Matthew Ryder KC told the Old Bailey Smith’s basis of plea differed from the prosecution case. “There is significant difference as to the basis ... including him not having a negative intention towards the UK the prosecution have alleged,” he said.
It is understood Smith cast himself as a disgruntled worker, not a spy, and never intended his actions would help Russia. He faces 14 years in prison for spying and will be sentenced at a later date.