Detained TA officer moved to hospital

(First Edition)

A WOMAN Territorial Army intelligence officer held in solitary confinement for four months on official secrets charges has been moved to a military hospital under the supervision of a consultant psychiatrist.

Carole Maychell, 34, a captain in the Territorial Army, who was suspected of passing classified documents to the Russians over a 10-year period, was said to be suffering from nervous strain and depression.

She was moved from the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester, Essex, to the Queen Elizabeth hospital, in Woolwich, south-east London, last Thursday after being examined by doctors.

Intelligence officers from the Army's special investigations branch have now completed the main body of their inquiry though a few lines remain outstanding, according to a Ministry of Defence spokesman.

Capt Maychell, assigned to Intelligence Corps at Ashford, Kent, was arrested last November when 52 bags of documents were removed from her home in Morecambe, Lancashire.

She was detained on the grounds that she had allegedly made two foreign visits without the permission of her commanding officer and had a classified document in her briefcase.

Details of the arrest emerged in February after her solicitors attempted to get her released on bail when they applied for a writ of habeas corpus and sought to get a judicial review of the case. Two judges rejected her applications.