Whitehall worker held as suspected spy

Security services arrest woman, 65, at London home after ‘MI5 tip-off’

A woman suspected of passing state secrets to a foreign power has been arrested. The 65-year-old British national, who has been working as a contractor for a Whitehall department, was arrested at her north London home and detained under the Official Secrets Act.

A 65-YEAR-OLD woman suspected of passing state secrets to countries such as Russia or China was arrested by anti-terrorism officers yesterday.

The British national, who has been working as a contractor for a Whitehall department, was arrested at her north London home by officers acting on a tip-off from the intelligence services.

She was detained by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command on suspicion of an offence under the Official Secrets Act, which covers espionage and passing secrets to an enemy. Officers yesterday searched an address in north London in connection with the investigation.

Sources said the arrest was not necessarily terrorism related, but there was speculation that the woman had been allegedly passing secrets to a foreign government, possibly China, Russia, or even North Korea.

Section 1 of the Act is headed Penalties for Spying and covers activities that amount to an offence carried out “for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state”.

Scotland Yard did not identify the government department for which the woman worked. She is not thought to have been working for any of the intelligence agencies, although the arrest was understood to have come as a result of information from MI5.

The Cabinet Office refused to disclose which part of government the woman worked for. She was described by sources as a middle-ranking employee with access to potentially sensitive material.

The Metropolitan Police said: “The 65-year-old woman, who is contracted to carry out work for a government department, was arrested by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) acting upon intelligence received.

“She was arrested for an offence contrary to Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911, and was detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. She currently remains in custody at a south London police station.”

Arrests under the 1911 Official Secrets Act are rare, although there have been convictions in recent years of individuals who breached the Act by attempting to leak or sell state secrets.

Five years ago, a Royal Navy petty officer was jailed for eight years after offering nuclear submarine secrets to MI5 agents posing as Russian spies.

Edward Devenney, 30, originally from Co Tyrone, gathered classified coding material after being passed over for promotion.

Devenney had contacted the Russian Embassy in November 2011 after what he said had been a 12-hour drinking binge. Two days later, he managed to access a safe on HMS Vigilant and photograph part of a secret code for encrypted information.

In 2010, a former British spy admitted trying to sell top secret files to foreign agents in contravention of the Act.

Daniel Houghton, who worked for MI6 between September 2007 and May 2009, was arrested in a Scotland Yard sting at a central London hotel after offering to sell documents to Dutch intelligence agents for £2 million.

In 2002, David Shayler, a former MI5 officer, was sentenced to six months in prison for passing secret documents to The Mail on Sunday in 1997 that purported to show that MI5 was paranoid about Left-wing politicians and activists, and that it had previously investigated senior Labour Party figures, including Jack Straw, Peter Mandelson and Harriet Harman.

‘She was arrested for an offence contrary to section 1 of the Official Secrets Act’