Annie Machon was an intelligence officer for the UK's MI5 in the 1990s, before leaving to help blow the whistle on the crimes and incompetence of the British spy agencies. As a result she and her former partner had to go on the run around Europe, live in exile in France, face arrest and imprisonment, and watch as friends, family and journalists were arrested.
She is now a writer, media commentator, political campaigner, and international public speaker on a variety of related issues: the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, the war on whistleblowers, and the war on the internet. In 2012 she started as a Director of LEAP in Europe (www.leap.cc). Annie has an MA (Hons) Classics from Cambridge University. She is the author of "Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5 and the David Shayler Affair" (The Book Guild, 2005).

Photographer: Chris Carr