Shayler 'leaked IRA papers'

Mr Shayler and Ms Machon were paid nearly £40,000

Former MI5 officer David Shayler betrayed a "life-long duty of confidentiality" by disclosing secret documents to a national newspaper, the Old Bailey has heard.

Jurors were shown a file of sensitive documents - some classified top secret - which prosecutors allege the ex-MI5 agent disclosed to the Mail On Sunday in the early 1990s.

Mr Shayler, 36, who was born in Middlesbrough and now lives in London, has denied three offences under the Official Secrets Act.

The prosecution came about following newspaper articles written in 1997, after he had left his job.

Mr Shayler gave the newspaper more than 250 pages of security and intelligence information, alleged prosecuting counsel Nigel Sweeney QC.

"Four were classified top secret and 18 secret," he said.

They contained a "mass of information" relating to security or classified matters, as well as information obtained in legal phone taps.

The documents covered several topics:

• One 135-page document covered links between the Provisional IRA and Libya over 25 years
  
• One, marked "confidential", dealt with arms and money given to the IRA by Libya
  
• Two dealt with "subversives", including an investigation into Soviet funding of the Communist Party of Great Britain
  
• Several dealt with the 1988 Lockerbie bombing
  
• Others concerned an unnamed "particular agent"
  
• Another covered an operation codenamed Shadower
  
• Another discussed Peter Bleach, a convicted arms dealer
  
• There was also an internal history of the first 50 years of the service

Mr Shayler was an agent in MI5 from 1991 to 1996, said Mr Sweeney.

He spent two years investigating terrorism in the Middle East and two probing the IRA, plus six months dealing with extremist left and right wing groups.

Mr Sweeney said Mr Shayler had three times signed the Official Secrets Act binding him to a "life-long duty of confidentiality", regarding both documents and intercepted telephone information.

He said Mr Shayler copied the 28 documents, some of which were later recovered from the Mail on Sunday, before he left the service in 1996.

Agents in court

An article was published under his name in August 1997 accusing MI5 of incompetence and mismanagement and he fled to France for three years, the court heard.

The newspaper paid Mr Shayler and his girlfriend Annie Machon nearly £40,000 in total, he said.

Mr Shayler, wearing a dark navy suit with a Remembrance Day poppy in his lapel, was representing himself in the trial.

He faces three charges of disclosing information, disclosing information by interception of communications and disclosing documents.

Mr Sweeney told the jury that four MI5 agents will give evidence during the trial, from behind a screen to protect their identities.

Legal battle

Mr Shayler returned to the UK in 2000 when the Human Rights Act came into force, Mr Sweeney said.

He was arrested but his trial was delayed by a two-year legal challenge in which he tried to impart a "public interest defence" under the European Charter of Human Rights into English law.

But three courts including the House of Lords rejected his arguments, the court heard.

Mr Sweeney said Mr Shayler would now not be able to defend his actions by arguing they were in the public interest.