A British secret service officer who saved thousands of Jews from persecution in Nazi Germany has been posthumously honoured by Israel.

The MI-6 officer, Frank Foley, defied both the Nazis and British policy by giving exit visas to Jews when he worked in the British embassy in Berlin in the late 1930s.

He also sheltered Jews in his own home.

Israel's Holocaust Memorial Centre, Yad Vashem, has recognised Captain Foley, who died in 1958, as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations".

This is the same honour which was bestowed on the German, Oscar Schindler, who saved thousands of Polish Jews from the Nazis, and whose work was celebrated in the Oscar-winning film, "Schindler's Ark.".