In 1961, which British spy was sentenced to 42 years in prison, one of the longest sentences ever handed down by a British court?
"George Blake George Blake (born George Behar on 11 November 1922) is a former British spy who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a Communist and decided to work for the KGB while a prisoner during the Korean War. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and fled to the Soviet Union. He was not one of the Cambridge Five spies, although he associated with Donald Maclean and Kim Philby after reaching the Soviet Union. Blake was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in"
"Act 1911 is 14 years, but his activities were divided into five time periods charged as five offences and, in May 1961 after an ""in camera"" trial at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to the maximum term of 14 years consecutively on each of three counts of spying for a potential enemy and 14 years concurrently on both the two remaining counts – a total of 42 years imprisonment – by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Parker of Waddington. This sentence was reported by newspapers to represent one year for each of the agents who were killed when he"
"the time he and his associates came to trial at the Old Bailey on 13 March 1961, no one knew his true identity. The ""Lonsdale"" who was put on trial in London in 1961 was charged with spying, along with associates Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee and Morris and Lona Cohen (who were using the aliases Peter and Helen Kroger). Still refusing to reveal his real identity, ""Gordon Lonsdale"" was sentenced to 25 years in jail in March 1961. He was taken to Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, to start his sentence. Although he was in a single cell, he fraternised with"
"on 3 June 1985. Walker entered into a plea bargain, agreeing to testify against Whitworth, apparently mainly in return for lenient treatment of his son. But Walker also received more lenient treatment than the man he had recruited - Walker would have been eligible for parole in May 2015 (he died on August 29, 2014 in prison), but Whitworth was sentenced to 365 years. Jerry Whitworth Jerry Alfred Whitworth (born 1939) was sentenced to 365 years for his part in the Walker family spy ring, which, at the time of Whitworth's arrest, U.S. authorities described as ""the most damaging espionage"
"sentenced George Blake, convicted of spying, to 42 years imprisonment, the longest sentence then passed in an English court; the conjunction seemed to some to suggest that Parker was too close to the government of the day, though others said Parker had been shocked at the extent of the treachery that had sent dozens of Western agents to their deaths. Parker had himself said that the Courts ""have a positive responsibility to be the handmaiden of administration rather than its governor"". However, Parker was popular among the profession as he secured improvements in judicial salaries and pensions. Parker was a"
"criminal trials of English history (it lasted from 30 May to 6 December 1972). As a result of the trial, John Barker, Jim Greenfield, Hilary Creek and Anna Mendleson received prison sentences of 10 years. A number of other defendants were found not guilty, including Stuart Christie, who had previously been imprisoned in Spain for carrying explosives with the intent to assassinate the dictator Francisco Franco, and Angela Mason who became a director of the LGBT rights group Stonewall and was awarded an OBE for services to homosexual rights. In February 2002, Prescott apologised for his role in bombing Robert"
"innocence, maintaining her claim that she believed that Lonsdale was an American. In the course of the trial, however, she finally admitted: ""In the light of what transpires now, I have done something terribly wrong, but at that time I did not think I had done anything criminal."" Houghton and Gee were both sentenced to 15 years in prison on 22 March 1961. The professional spies were given longer sentences but were exchanged early on for captured British agents and citizens. Gee and Houghton served nine years and were released on 12 May 1970; they married in 1971. Ethel Houghton"
"from him during his imprisonment, and subsequently remarried. The detective who was in charge of the Prime investigation from the police point of view, Detective Chief Inspector D.J. Cole, later and in retirement wrote a book about the case, the book being entitled ""Geoffrey Prime: The Imperfect Spy"". Geoffrey Prime Geoffrey Arthur Prime (born 21 February 1938) is a British former spy, who disclosed information to the Soviet Union while working for the Royal Air Force and later for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency, responsible for signals intelligence, during the 1960s and 1970s. Prime was convicted in"
"dominated by several high-profile spying stories: the breaking of the Portland spy ring in 1961, the capture and sentencing of George Blake in the same year and, in 1962, the case of the Admiralty clerk, John Vassall, blackmailed into spying by the Soviets who threatened to expose his homosexuality. In October 1962 Vassall was jailed for 18 years. After suggestions in the press that Vassall had been shielded by his political masters, the responsible minister, Thomas Galbraith, resigned from the government pending inquiries. Galbraith was later exonerated by the Radcliffe inquiry, which sent two newspaper journalists to prison for refusing"
"betrayed them, although this is dubious. It was the longest sentence (excluding life terms) ever handed down by a British court, until Nezar Hindawi was sentenced to 45 years for the attempted bombing of an El Al jet. Five years later, on 22 October 1966, Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison with the assistance of three men whom he had met in jail: Sean Bourke and two anti-nuclear campaigners, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle. The escape was masterminded by Bourke, who originally approached Randle only for financial help with the escape. Randle became more involved and suggested they bring Pottle"
"John Vassall William John Christopher Vassall (20 September 1924 – 18 November 1996) was a British civil servant who spied for the Soviet Union, allegedly under pressure of blackmail, from 1954 until his arrest in 1962. Although operating only at a junior level, he was able to provide details of naval technology which were crucial to the modernising of the Soviet Navy. He was sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment, and was released in 1972 after ten. The Vassall scandal greatly embarrassed the Macmillan government, but was soon eclipsed by the more dramatic Profumo affair. Born in 1924 and known throughout"
"Andrew Aston Andrew Simon Aston(born 22 November 1972 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) is a convicted British murderer who has the distinction of having received the longest prison sentence ever handed down in England and Wales - 26 concurrent terms of life imprisonment. Over a period of three months in early 2001, Aston, a cocaine addict, attacked 26 elderly and disabled people in robberies at their homes in Birmingham and parts of neighbouring Sandwell. Two of the victims died as a result of their injuries; 87-year-old George Dale, who died in hospital two weeks after being attacked at his Ladywood home"
"Andrew Aston Andrew Simon Aston(born 22 November 1972 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) is a convicted British murderer who has the distinction of having received the longest prison sentence ever handed down in England and Wales - 26 concurrent terms of life imprisonment. Over a period of three months in early 2001, Aston, a cocaine addict, attacked 26 elderly and disabled people in robberies at their homes in Birmingham and parts of neighbouring Sandwell. Two of the victims died as a result of their injuries; 87-year-old George Dale, who died in hospital two weeks after being attacked at his Ladywood home"
"details of his spying, and to testify against Whitworth in exchange for a pledge from the prosecutors that the maximum sentence requested for Michael was 25 years imprisonment, which was later Michael's sentence. All the members of the spy ring besides Michael Walker received life sentences for their role in the espionage. Whitworth was sentenced to 365 years in prison and fined $410,000 for his involvement. Whitworth is now incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Atwater, a high-security federal prison in California. Walker's older brother Arthur received three life sentences plus 40 years and died in the Butner Federal Correctional"
"1962. At the Treason Trial (1956–1961), he was eventually sentenced to six years, but was released on bail pending his appeal. He went underground in 1963, resulting in his wife being the first woman arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963 (or ""90-day clause""). He was caught at Rivonia on 11 July, along with 16 others. At the conclusion of the Rivonia Trial (1963–1964), he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 12 June 1964. With other senior ANC figures, he served the majority of his sentence on Robben Island. In October 1989, he was released after 26 years"
"at the trial was that he had been blackmailed by the Poles and the Russians into spying for them, and that the information he gave them were already in the public domain. At the end of the trial Lonsdale was given a sentence of 25 years, the Krogers given 20 years, while Houghton and Gee were both sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Lonsdale did not serve much of this sentence, as in April 1964, he arrived in Berlin to be exchanged for the British spy Greville Wynne. In 1969 the Krogers were also exchanged - for the lecturer Gerald Brooke."
"fully assess these conclusions. In any case, it seems clear that Fuchs could not have just given the Soviets the ""secret"" to the hydrogen bomb, since he did not himself actually know it. It is likely that Fuchs' espionage led the U.S. to cancel a 1950 Anglo-American plan to give Britain American-made atomic bombs. He was prosecuted by Sir Hartley Shawcross, and was convicted on 1 March 1950 of four counts of breaking the Official Secrets Act by ""...communicating information to a potential enemy."" After a trial lasting less than 90 minutes, Lord Goddard sentenced him to fourteen years' imprisonment,"
"while he was serving that sentence that his first son, Sean, was born. In October 1967, he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for participating in an occupation of the Greek Embassy in London following the Colonels' coup in April of that year. During his time in Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1962–3, Randle became friends with George Blake, the British MI6 agent sentenced in 1961 to forty-two years imprisonment for passing information to the Soviet Union. His outrage at the sentence imposed on Blake led him and two others, Pat Pottle and Séan Bourke, to assist Blake to escape from"
"then followed to Bossard's desk, and eventually to the hotel he was using. Bossard was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act and received a trial at the Old Bailey on 10 May 1965, where he confessed and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Lord Chief Justice Hubert Parker informed Bossard: ""It would be longer, and I emphasise this, but for the fact that you are now 52 years of age and that you have shown a degree of remorse by making a full confession extending far beyond the matters in respect of which you are charged"". At the"
"Attorney General v Blake George Blake was a former member of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1944 to 1961. For his employment contract, he had signed an Official Secrets Act 1911 declaration to disclose no information about his work. It applied after his employment ceased. In 1951, he became a Soviet agent, thus, being a double agent. He was discovered in 1961 and the British government imprisoned him in Wormwood Scrubs (HM Prison). He escaped in 1966 and fled to the Soviet Union. He wrote a book about it and his secret services work called ""No Other Choice"". He"
"Robert Hanssen Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as ""possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."" He is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. Hanssen was born in Chicago. His father, a police officer, was emotionally abusive to him during his childhood. In 1968 Hanssen married his wife Bonnie, a strict Roman Catholic. He"
"was arrested in the United Kingdom, during a transit there. He was tried in the United Kingdom, under the British ""Official Secrets Act"". He pleaded guilty and, on December 7, 1982 he was sentenced by Mr Justice Croom-Johnson to ten years in prison. He spent jail time in Gartree Prison, in Market Harborough, Leicestershire. He was transferred to a prison in Canada in June, 1986. He was liberated under surveillance in March, 1989. Hugh Hambleton Hugh Hambleton (born 1922) is a Canadian and British economist and a spy in the service of the Soviet Union. Hugh George Hambleton was born"
"to section 1(1)(c). Geoffrey Prime was sentenced to imprisonment for a total of 35 years for disclosing material while employed at GCHQ. Michael Bettany was sentenced to imprisonment for a total of 23 years. Michael Smith was sentenced to imprisonment for 20 years (reduced from 25 on appeal). History From 1911 to 1920, an offence under this section was punishable with penal servitude for any term not less than three years and not exceeding seven years. See section 7 of the Official Secrets Act 1920. See section 6 of the Official Secrets Act 1920 and section 5(6) of the Official"
"Michael John Smith (espionage) Michael John Smith was born on 22 September 1948. In 1992 Smith was arrested, accused spying for the KGB, and charged with four offenses under sections 1(1)(b) and (c) of the UK Official Secrets Act 1911. Smith was convicted on the three section 1(1)(c) charges relating to 'communicating material to another for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State'. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, reduced in June 1995 on appeal to 20 years. Christopher Andrew in his history of the KGB described Smith as ""probably the most important British"
"times, many people convicted of espionage have been given penal sentences rather than execution. For example, Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American CIA analyst, turned KGB mole, who was convicted of espionage in 1994; he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the high-security Allenwood U.S. Penitentiary. Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer and analyst who committed espionage against his country by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. So far as it is known, Ames compromised the second-largest number of CIA agents, second only to Robert Hanssen, who is also serving a prison"
"was sentenced to 25 years. In 1964, he was exchanged for the British spy Greville Wynne, who had been arrested in the Soviet Union. His real name was revealed to be Konon Trofimovich Molody. It is believed that the ring numbered more than the five who were arrested, but these would have included staff at the Russian and Polish embassies who would have been immune from prosecution anyway. In 1964, the events were used in the movie ""Ring of Spies"" (also known as ""Ring of Treason""), directed by Robert Tronson and starring William Sylvester as Gordon Lonsdale and Bernard Lee"
"Charles Bronson (prisoner) Charles Arthur ""Charlie"" Salvador (formerly Charles Ali Ahmed; born Michael Gordon Peterson on 6 December 1952), better known as Charles Bronson, is an English criminal who has been referred to in the British press as the ""most violent prisoner in Britain"" and ""Britain's most notorious prisoner"". He has spent periods detained in the Rampton, Broadmoor and Ashworth high-security psychiatric hospitals. First arrested as a petty criminal, he was convicted and sentenced in 1974 to seven years' imprisonment for armed robbery. Additional time was added due to attacks on prisoners and guards. Upon his release in 1987, he"
"spy rings that might extend into the USA. Several Canadians named in Gouzenko's documents were immediately arrested and sequestered until summoned before the royal commission. Evidence before the commissioners suggested at least two Soviet espionage networks were active in Canada in wartime, one targeting the Manhattan Project. About 20 Canadian suspects were tried in 1947-48 for espionage. Ten were convicted and punished in a range from five years imprisonment to a $500 fine, seven were judged not guilty and two more acquitted on appeal. British nuclear scientist Alan Nunn May was arrested in England in March, 1946 and pleaded guilty;"
"P. S. Popov, who was executed in 1960. In 1961, Blake fell under suspicion after revelations by Polish defector Michael Goleniewski and others. He was arrested when he arrived in London after being summoned from Lebanon, where he was enrolled at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies (MECAS). Under interrogation, Blake hotly denied he was tortured or blackmailed by the North Koreans. Without thinking what he was saying, he stated that he had switched sides voluntarily. He then gave his MI6 interrogators a full confession. The maximum sentence for any one offence under section 1 of the Official Secrets"
"this episode. The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series ""Mugshots"" released an episode on the Robert Hanssen case titled ""Robert Hanssen - Hanssen and the KGB"". Robert Hanssen Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as ""possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."" He is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. Hanssen was born"
"Portland Spy Ring The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet spy ring that operated in England from the late 1950s until 1961 when the core of the network was arrested by the British security services. It is one of the most famous examples of the use of ""illegal residents""—spies who operate in a foreign country but without the cover of their embassy. Its members included Harry Houghton, Ethel Gee, Gordon Lonsdale and Morris and Lona Cohen (also known as Peter and Helen Kroger). In 1959, the CIA received letters from a mole, codenamed ""Sniper"" (who later turned out to be"
"was the second to last criminal executed in London and the twelfth to last in the United Kingdom. Edwin Bush Edwin Bush (1940–1961) was the first British criminal to be caught through the use of the Identikit facial composite system. He was 21 years old when he was executed at Pentonville Prison in London on 6 July 1961. Bush was sentenced to death on 12 May 1961 at the Old Bailey, for the capital murder on 3 March 1961 of Elsie May Batten, a 59-year-old assistant in an antique shop in Cecil Court off Charing Cross Road in London. Mrs"
"Sean Bourke Sean Aloyisious Bourke (1934–1982) was a petty criminal from Limerick who became internationally famous when he arranged the prison escape of the British spy George Blake in October 1966, helped by Michael Randle and Pat Pottle. Blake had been convicted in 1961 of spying for the Soviet Union. Their motives for helping Blake to escape were their belief that his 42-year sentence was ""inhuman"" and a personal liking of Blake. He was born in Limerick into a large family. Actor Richard Harris was his second cousin and poet Desmond O'Grady was his first cousin. As a boy of"