Geoffrey Prime

Geoffrey Prime (born 1938) was a British spy for the Soviet Union while working for the Royal Air Force and later for Government Communications Headquarters, the British cryptography agency, during the 1960s and 1970s. He was eventually convicted for espionage as well as for child sexual abuse.

Prime was first detected when his wife persuaded him to turn himself in, and he later participated in the Paedophile Information Exchange, a pro-paedophile activism group being watched by the British government.cite news |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/prime-released-after-19-years-in-jail-for-spying-687226.html |title=Prime released after 19 years in jail for spying| author=Paul Peachey |date=14 March 2001 |publisher=The Independent, UK] Members of the group used secret codes to communicate. He was subsequently identified as supplying information to the Soviets, and was tried convicted, and imprisoned in 1982. He was sentenced to a total of 38 years, 35 for espionage and 3 for sex offences against children. The information he disclosed was publicly represented as having been damaging to the UK and beneficial to the Soviets, but details were not released and remain unknown. His position at GCHQ made him privy to information which would have been damaging had he turned it all over to the Soviets.

His sentence was the second-longest jail sentence in British legal history.Fact|date=April 2008 The judges at his trial and his appeal said that if Britain had been at war with the Soviet Union, his crimes would make him eligible for the death penalty, and that they would have had no compunction to impose it. He was released from prison in 2001; his release was controversial and caused a public outcry.Who|date=April 2008 He currently lives quietly in an undisclosed area, though "The Daily Mail" has disclosed his whereabouts. As of 2008, he is still on the sex offenders register.Fact|date=April 2008

References

*Cole, D. J. "Geoffrey Prime: The Imperfect Spy".

Notes