The former husband of the woman at the centre of the Russia spy ring has been revealed as being from Bournemouth.

Trainee psychiatrist Alex Chapman, 30, was married to Anna Kuchchenko for four years before their divorce in 2006.

The 28-year-old redhead is one of 11 people accused of spying in the United States.

Several members of the alleged spy ring appeared in court in the US on Thursday.

It’s understood that Mr Chapman’s parents live in Stuckton, Fordingbridge.

Yesterday Mr Chapman told how his suspicions about his wife grew in 2005 as their marriage broke down. He believed she was being “conditioned” by shadowing contacts and her own father.

Mr Chapman told the Daily Telegraph that his wife claimed her father had been high up in the KGB.

He added: “Towards the end of our marriage she became very secretive, going for meetings on her own with ‘Russian friends’ and I guess it might have been because she was in contact with the Russian government.”

An officer from MI5 interviewed public school educated Mr Chapman at his home in Bournemouth on Wednesday as part of the British Security Services investigation into his ex-wife.