A TEACHER told a jury yesterday of his life on the run as a “spy” after a bogus MI5 officer persuaded him to decide that “my country needs me”.

John Atkinson, 34, was a student at an agricultural college in 1992 when the barman at the college pub convinced him that he was investigating an IRA cell.

Robert Hendy-Freegard, the barman at The Swan in Newport, Shropshire, lured him into joining the “intelligence operation” against the IRA.

In the next three years, Mr Hendy-Freegard allegedly swindled Mr Atkinson and his parents out of more than £300,000 as the young student accepted that his life was in danger.

The story of his subsequent life on the run was told on the second day of Mr Hendy-Freegard’s trial on 21 counts of kidnapping, threats to kill, causing actual bodily harm, theft and obtaining money by deception. He denies all charges.

Mr Atkinson, who gave up his place at the Harper Adams College in his final year, said that he reflected on the fact that 30 per cent of the students were Irish and that two years earlier one had been caught gun-running for the IRA. Police had warned students not to wear balaclavas, even as a prank.

Then in January 1992 a friend called Gary, who had an Irish fiancée, had killed himself with a shotgun. Mr Atkinson, who now lives abroad teaching English as a foreign language, gave his evidence behind a screen at Blackfriars Crown Court in London.

He said: “I thought, this is rubbish, it’s nonsense. I asked him for some proof. He said, ‘I am working under cover. Of course I don’t carry any proof in case I get caught.’ He said, ‘Go away for the weekend and think about it. Think about students acting suspiciously.’

“I was curious, scared, paranoid about what was going on. I made a list of students possibly up to no good or not what they appeared to be. One of my flatmates was a very clever guy. What was he doing at agricultural college? Another was never there. What was she doing? Once paranoia sets in, you start seeing ghosts and ghouls everywhere, and I started to believe him.”

Two of his friends did not get on, so why were they meeting at 5am at the college farm where the bomb-making ingredient of nitrogen fertiliser was stored, he wondered? Mr Atkinson relayed his suspicions to Mr Hendy-Freegard. “He turned the pressure up and he wanted to recruit me to crack the IRA cell in the Midlands. I stopped going to college. There was no point. I could complete my studies next year. My country needed me and I was flattered, I was arrogant, I believed him.”

The impressionable student was then “toughened up” by his mentor who beat him blindfolded in the cellar of The Swan to see if he could take it. “I was in the Army Corps and when the officer said, ‘jump’, you asked, ‘how high?’ I acquiesced far too easily.”

Mr Hendy-Freegard allegedly then recruited two of Mr Atkinson’s student friends, Maria Hendy, who eventually bore him two daughters, and Sarah Smith, in early 1993 without telling them the full story. He claimed that his cover as an investigator had been blown.

“Rob says, ‘They are on to me. The IRA knows about it and, through association, you and Maria and Sarah. You are in danger.’ We had to get away,” Mr Atkinson said.

On the pretext that Mr Atkinson was terminally ill, Mr Hendy-Freegard persuaded the girls to take a two-week “farewell tour” with them around Britain. It was during that tour that he allegedly explained to them his role as an undercover agent investigating IRA activity.

After their round-Britain trip, they moved to Sheffield, were prevented from making friends, and had scarcely anything to eat. Mr Atkinson and Miss Smith emptied their bank accounts, his of about £1,000 and hers of £25,000, and handed the cash to Mr Hendy-Freegard who said the money would be paid in trust into a “police account”. Asked by Godfrey Carey, QC, for the prosecution, why he had not gone to the police , Mr Atkinson said: “Rob’s response was that police wouldn’t know anything about it. It would cause a lot of trouble and make the situation last longer.”

He finally told his sister that the IRA was pursuing him. Before Mr Atkinson extricated himself from his predicament, more than £300,000 had been obtained from his father, which he had never recovered.

The trial continues.

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