What would happen to an MI5 officer who went bad?
Disloyalty to your country is treason, and this is considered to be an extremely serious crime. So serious in fact that it still held the death sentence until as late as 1998. However in practice it has been a very long time since anyone has been punished in such a severe manner. The last person to be executed for treason in this country was William Joyce in 1946 for his support of the Germans during WWII. Less than 10 years later the Cambridge spy ring was began to be uncovered. However none of those involved were brought to justice, and most were able to flee to Russia to begin new lives there. Even when Anthony Blunt was finally connected to the group in 1979, he was stripped of his knighthood and many of his privileges, but there was no conviction. A traitor who received rather harsher treatment was Michael Bettaney. He had been recruited to the MI5 in 1982 as part of a drive to recruit more ordinary people as agents. He immediately proved to be utterly unsuitable for the service,
