John Alexander Symonds

John Alexander Symonds (born 13 July 1935) is an English former Metropolitan Police officer and KGB agent.

Biography

Symonds was born in the Soke of Peterborough. He was commissioned in the Royal Artillery, serving from 1953 to 1956.

He joined the Metropolitan Police in 1956, becoming a detective sergeant at New Scotland Yard. In 1969, after having been a police officer for 15 years, Symonds was one of three officers charged with corruption following a newspaper investigation into bribery at Scotland Yard. He skipped bail and fled to Morocco in 1972.[1] Symonds claimed later that he had been "fitted up" and forced to leave under pain of death after having threatened to expose during any trial "the endemic and systemic corruption within the Metropolitan Police service" at the time.[1]

In Morocco, Symonds served as a mercenary, making use of his police and military expertise to train African troops to use the 25-pounder howitzer, an artillery piece that was, by that time, obsolete by British Army standards and had been sold off as surplus to several African countries.[1] It was at this point that Symonds was recruited by the KGB.[2]

Between 1972 and 1980, he was a KGB agent employed as a "Romeo spy" with the codename SKOT. He was directed by his Soviet masters to seduce women working in Western embassies with the aim of obtaining secrets.[3] In 1981, he returned to England.

Symonds revealed himself as a spy to the police and security services in the 1980s, and appeared on the front page of the Daily Express (1985) and in the News on Sunday (1987), but was dismissed as "a fantasist".[1] It was only with the defection of Major Vasili Mitrokhin in 1992 and the subsequent publication of the Mitrokhin Archive in 1999, in which Symonds was named as a spy for the Soviet Union, that his claim gained credence.

Symonds was never prosecuted for any offence related to espionage or spying, and was never interviewed by MI5 or the Secret Intelligence Service. It was confirmed that Symonds was not being prosecuted because he had been offered immunity by the Director of Public Prosecutions office in 1984 in connection with a criminal inquiry.[4][5] This was granted in relation to police corruption inquiries,[6] stated by Symonds to be Operation Countryman.

The publication of Mitrokhin's material launched a parliamentary inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee. Its report when published referred to the lack of interest shown by the security services in Symonds' case:

The Committee believes that it was a serious failure of the Security Service not to refer Mr Symonds' case to the Law Officers in mid 1993. We are concerned that it took over 9 months to consult the Law Officers after he was identified in the draft book. We believe that the Service could have interviewed Mr Symonds, at least for the intelligence and historical record.[6]

Romeo Spy: the movie

Prodigy Pictures were for some time in the pre-production stage of making a movie based on the autobiography of John Symonds.[7] However, as of September 2013 the movie appeared to be no longer under development.[8]

References
  1. "I told you I was a spy". The Guardian. London. 14 September 1999. Retrieved 13 January 2008.
  2. BBC: "The Spying Game", first broadcast on BBC2, 19 September 1999.
  3. "The 'Romeo' spy". BBC News. 13 September 1999. Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  4. Buncombe, Andrew (21 December 1999). "The spy who came in from the past escapes prosecution". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  5. "Written Answers to Questions - SOLICITOR-GENERAL - Mitrokhin Archive". Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  6. "Intelligence and Security Committee - The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report". Archived from the original on 24 April 2008. Retrieved 12 January 2008.
  7. "'Romeo Spy' movie to be produced at Prodigy Pictures Inc". Archived from the original on 12 June 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
  8. "In Development". prodigypictures.com.
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