A Midland naval officer who confessed to spying for the Russians told his interrogators his wife suggested espionage when they hit a cash-flow crisis, records published today reveal.
David Bingham, from Stratford-upon-Avon, joined Warwickshire's probation service after serving eight years in prison for selling Royal Navy secrets to the Soviets.
A Ministry of Defence report, part of a file released today by the National Archives at Kew, reveals how Bingham initially claimed he had been a KGB agent for years and that neither his shipmates, nor his wife and children had any idea of his double identity.
However, in an inter-view with Special Branch officers in September 1971, the father-of-four said he started spying in January 1970 at the suggestion of his wife Maureen after his debts climbed to #2,000.
After his arrest, he told detectives he had initially lied to protect Maureen.
Bingham was jailed for 21 years and his wife - the couple subsequently divorced - to 30 months.
In July 1982, Bingham - then known as David Brough - was appointed to a #6,000-a-year job with the probation after-care service in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he had been running a small florists' shop with his second wife, May, for three years.
