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A British Embassy worker who spied for Russia is alleged to have passed pictures of his colleagues’ friends and family to handlers. David Smith, a 58-year-old security guard, was found to have sent various classified documents in May and November 2020 and later confessed to British counter-intelligence operatives. Although Mr Smith has admitted to sending the documents, he denies being on the Kremlin’s payroll or providing a stream of intelligence.

The Russian Embassy received word from David Smith in November 2020 that he had revealed the identity of an unnamed diplomat who had served in Moscow, the Old Bailey heard.

Additionally, he provided information about the precise duties of other staff at the embassy and supplied images of them.

Smith later claimed that he sent nothing additional to the Russian Embassy because he was “ashamed” to see the people he had wronged afterwards.

During Wednesday’s cross-examination, the prosecutor Alison Morgan KC said: “You saw X and the people whose photos you sent to the Russians.

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“Presumably you told them you had endangered their safety? At any moment the Russians would know who they were, what role they performed.”

Smith answered: “As far as I was concerned the information was already known.

“I took the pictures to show the lack of security as I pushed back against the embassy but I assure you I haven’t sent another thing.”

Addressing the court, Ms Morgan said that Smith recorded around the embassy in June 2021, identifying coworkers and even capturing private images of their loved ones on their desks.

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Smith stated: “I was p***ed when I made the video. It was a good idea at the time.”

Ms Morgan argued: “These are not drunken videos taken by a teenager and put on TikTok.

“Your hand appears steady throughout. It’s more than that, because although you say you were ashamed you revealed information about X and other members of staff, those videos show you going to particular offices in the building.

“You film the name plaque on the door, and when you’ve done that you go into the room and you film the outside space outside the window. The purpose is showing a person who might look at the video here is the name and here is their precise location.

“What the videos then show is other things – rifling through drawers, walking over to whiteboards, and we see your hands appearing next to particular names, and those names are not accidental drunken choices.”

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Smith retorted that he couldn’t recall.

Ms Morgan said: “How was your guilt in June 2021 when you zoomed in on photos on their desks showing them with their family members and friends? You were filming everything that someone would need to identify that person, to know their relatives, where their offices were located and their phone numbers, and you were being told to do that.

She asked: “When you say you feel guilty, do you want to say now who was directing those videos?”

Smith replied: ‘No-one at all.’

He is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey.

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