The British government declined to comment last night on a widening scandal fuelled yesterday newspaper accusations against two more Britons of having spied for the former communist states in East Europe. The two new figures named by three newspapers were Dr Vic Allen, a retired sociology professor, and Dr Gwyneth Edwards, a former German studies lecturer.
BBC television screened the first in a series of programmes, The Spying Game, last night, adding to the latest accusations against Dr Robin Pearson, a lecturer at Hull University, who has been accused of spying for East Germany.
Dr Edwards was reported to have denied passing information on other British academics and dissident exile writers to East Germany's Stasi secret police.
Dr Allen told the BBC he did not regret passing information on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to East German intelligence officers, although he was a member of CND.
"It was perfectly legitimate that I should do that as the faction I belonged to was the pro-Soviet, the pro-GDR [East German] faction," Dr Allen said. "I have no shame. I feel no regrets about that at all."
The BBC programme said Dr Pearson was a spy for the Stasi from 1977 until the fall of the Berlin Wall 12 years later.