Sunday 18 May at 17:05 : The Max Mosley sex scandal has deepened yet further, with reports on Sunday that an agent of the British intelligence service MI5 had to resign because his wife was one of the five sadomasochistic prostitutes.

The unnamed officer left MI5 last month, but official sources deny that the security agency played a part in the covert operation that led to the notorious News of the World revelations.

"Any suggestion that the service was involved in setting up Mosley is total nonsense," a senior official is quoted as saying by the Sunday Times, which is a sister newspaper to its fellow News International rag News of the World.

The official explained that the prostitute's husband left MI5 because of the "high standards of behaviour" that are expected even of its staff's private lives.

Before the second world war, MI5 planted unnamed informants inside the British Union of Fascists, the movement that was formed and headed by 68-year-old Mosley's father, Sir Oswald Mosley.