Security fears after MI6 files stolen

Many documents containing details of secret information gathering software devised by Daniel Houghton, 25, have yet to be traced.

Yesterday Houghton, who worked for the secret intelligence service between September 2007 and May last year, denied a count of theft, but pleaded guilty to two offences under the Official Secrets Act.

Houghton, of Hoxton, east London, who holds British and Dutch nationality, was arrested in a Scotland Yard sting at a London hotel in March. He boasted he made copies of the electronic files as he attempted to sell them for 2m to Dutch intelligence agents.

As he negotiated for cash, Houghton revealed he had a second memory card containing further information hidden at his mother's home in Devon. This has never been found.

When he handed over the information to supposed Dutch spies he claimed he had given them "everything".

But officers from Scotland Yard's specialist operations unit found hard copies of classified paperwork, some marked top secret or secret, while searching his shared rented flat in Hoxton, east London.

They also discovered a Sony memory card containing about 7,000 files, some of them deleted, thought to be copies a list of MI6 agents and the files that he tried to sell.

The police search also uncovered a portable hard drive which held

secret and top secret documents.

Security service officials said unauthorised disclosure of the material could have a significant impact on operations to protect Britain.

They added that Houghton was effectively a loose cannon with potentially valuable experience of security techniques in his head that could have a severe impact on the UK's security if they fell into the wrong hands.

Investigators feared Houghton, who holds joint British and Dutch nationality and speaks Dutch, could use his 32,000 savings to flee the country as he had few social ties.

Houghton showed astonishing naivety for someone selling highly

sensitive state secrets.

When he first made contact with the Dutch agents, he used his own

mobile phone to call a publicly listed number.

One source close to the inquiry said he was a computer expert with limited social skills. He said: "He certainly was not James Bond."

He added that the move to sell the information was not sophisticated and investigators had been unable to find any other attempts.

Houghton was arrested as he walked to the lift of a central London hotel on March 1, with a suitcase containing 900,000.

The computer expert, who had no criminal record, went through a vigorous vetting process to land his first job with MI6.

His mother, who owns a smallholding in Devon, offered to put up 50,000 as a surety so he could get bail but the request was refused.

He had little contact with his father, who separated from his mother 19 years ago and now lives in Holland.

One senior source said Houghton was a highly-intelligent man who

quickly became bored with working at MI6.

He said the young man was motivated purely by greed as he was living a "champagne lifestyle on ginger beer wages".

MI6 declined to comment on the embarrassing breaches of security exposed by the prosecution.

Mr Justice Bean will consider psychiatric reports on Houghton as part of the sentencing exercise.

Duncan Penny, appearing for the defence, said: "He accepts that a custodial sentence is inevitable in this case, given the gravity of the offences."