January 14 2001 FOCUS
A rebel spy on the run (part 2)
ON May 12, 1996, The Sunday Times published a piece about MI6's spying
against the French. It made a small splash on the back page, but no doubt
caused a few more ripples in Vauxhall Cross.
I faxed my mobile phone number to MI6, asking it to contact me. When it did
not do so, I rang The Sunday Times again. This time, it ran the story of
Serbian donations to the Tories.
A few days later, a grave-sounding message was left on my mobile phone,
asking me to ring a London number. This was answered by George Shrimpton,
an MI6 personnel officer near the end of his service.
"Would you be prepared to meet me?" he asked.
"Of course. But I first want your word of honour that you will not arrest
me, and that you will not use surveillance to establish my whereabouts."
"We will not call the Guardia Civil during the negotiations," he promised.
At his insistence, we met in Madrid. He brought along a younger officer,
Andy Watts, to stack the negotiations against me. They rejected my request
for an employment tribunal. "You know how prejudicial that would be to
national security." A week later, they invited me to another meeting and
brought along thick dossiers labelled with my old staff number.
"We're going to let you look at your own personal files," Shrimpton beamed.
He hoped that the reasons for my dismissal would become clearer to me. But
these notes of meetings with members of personnel department were a blend
of bias, fantasy and venom.
None of the excellent work that my line managers had praised was even
mentioned,but there were scathing criticisms for the most trivial errors.
My failure to wear a tie to meet an indicted war criminal earned pages of
abuse from a personnel officer I nicknamed String Vest.
Our last meeting, in February 1997, took place in the British embassy.
Shrimpton pushed across a document offering me assistance to find a job and
a loan of £25,000. In return, I had to drop my demands for an employment
tribunal, hand over my laptop for formatting of the hard drive containing
the text of the book, and sign over copyright on anything that I
subsequently wrote about MI6. It was absurdly one-sided, in my view.
"There is no way you're getting my signature on that," I protested.
"Oh, but we've got you a fantastic alternative job," countered Shrimpton.
"It's a great opportunity, in industry. You will be much better paid than
you were in the service."
When I still refused to sign,Watts joined in the bullying.
"Richard," he said, "you know that MI6 is a very powerful organisation,
with influence around the world. If you don't sign up, we'll use this
influence to harass you for the rest of your life, wherever you go. We'll
make sure you never get a decent job again, and can never settle in any
country with friendly relations with Britain."
Shrimpton stood up, paced across the room, and spun on his heel to face me.
"If you don't sign this agreement now," he shouted, "we cannot guarantee
your safety."
"But you can't arrest me. You promised in writing that you wouldn't."
"That promise stood only for as long as negotiations were in progress," he
snapped. "If you don't sign, we will end the negotiations."
There was no choice. He had cornered me. No doubt Special Branch officers
would be waiting with handcuffs outside in an embassy corridor, ready to
arrest me. Or I would be set up for an arrest by the Guardia Civil.
Planting drugs wouldn't be difficult.
Grabbing a pen, I angrily signed, my signature distorted by fear.
I returned to England and discovered that the "much better paid" job
arranged by MI6 was in the marketing department of the motor racing team
owned by the former world champion driver Jackie Stewart. The salary was
25% below my MI6 pay.
Looking for better prospects, I flew to Australia, where I had resident
rights as I was born in New Zealand. In Sydney, I struck a problem. Because
it would be a breach of the OSA to reveal my former employment with MI6,
personnel had ordered me to say on my CV that I had voluntarily left the
Foreign Office. Clearly, no employer would believe that I had willingly
resigned as a diplomat to start again at the bottom in the private sector.
