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Despite their new source of income, the Binghams were unable to get out of debt. A finance company threatened to report them to the police for selling a car before they had completed payment on it. Bingham was becoming desperate, and was eventually even driven to pawning the camera the Soviets had given him. He also felt increasingly guilty about selling secrets to the Russians. One day last August, he sought out a senior officer aboard his ship in Portsmouth. "I am and have been for a number of years a Soviet agent," he declared. (Actually, according to the Attorney General, Bingham had been spying for only about 18 months.) His confession came only a few weeks before the British government expelled 105 Soviet diplomats and other officials on charges of engaging in espionage. Bingham's contact, the assistant naval attaché at the Soviet embassy who was quickly sent home on leave, was refused re-entry into Britain.
After the trial, Maureen was by turns contrite, defiant and apologetic, with an unending supply of startling statements about the affair for newsmen. "My husband was an idiot to give himself up," she told the Daily Mail. She also declared that "I was the one who passed on information through the dead drops. I shall never know why I was not charged." Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions also was puzzled, and ordered an investigation. At week's end Maureen Bingham was charged under the Official Secrets Act and released on $1,200 bail.