A British man who would "dream about being like James Bond" has been jailed for seven years after trying to spy for Russia.

Howard Phillips, 65, was found guilty in July for trying to pass information about former Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, whom he knew, to two men whom he believed were Russian intelligence agents.

However, the agents were actually undercover British intelligence agents.

"You were prepared to betray your country for money," Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb told Phillips at his sentencing hearing at Winchester Crown Court, in the south of England.

The judge said that Phillips had "a personality with narcissistic tendencies and an overblown sense of his own importance".

The trial heard that Phillips intended to assist Russian agents between the end of 2023 and May 2024

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