UK spy gets 35 years in jail

1987 - Geoffrey Prime, a former translator at Britain’s electronic intelligence-gathering centre, was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment for spying for the Soviet Union for more than 14 years. He was handed down another three-year sentence for sexually molesting three young girls. “By your treachery you have done incalculable harm to the interests and security of this country ...,” judge Lord Lane said in passing the sentence. British authorities had no suspicion that Prime was a spy until he was picked up on the assault charges in Cheltenham, where he had worked for the top-secret government communications headquarters. His second wife Rhona, 37, said she had gone to the police with Prime’s espionage equipment after discovering it under a bed in their home.