THE father of a former Burley-in-Wharfedale woman alleged to have provided information to East German agents has declared: "She is definitely not a traitor and she wasn't a spy."

Walter Houlding, 74, who still lives in Burley, said his daughter, Fiona, was seeking legal advice over the allegations.

According to reports this week Fiona Houlding, now 36, married and living in Surrey, had been named in Stasi documents as having provided agents with information.

They followed allegations made in the BBC documentary that retired Keighley professor Vic Allen passed information from CND to the Stasi.

Fiona, a fluent German speaker who studied at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig in 1986, was said to have become friends with an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret police.

But she has been quoted as saying she had done nothing wrong and that she had been given money to go to West Germany to buy books about facism in the West.

"I was never asked if I wished to work for the Stasi and I would certainly have said 'no' if the question had arisen," she said. adding she might have been naive in accepting money for travel and accommodation expenses.

Her father said the allegations had been very upsetting for him and his 73-year-old wife, Hanna.

He said:" There's nothing I can say really that's going to be helpful - only that it's not very pleasant.

"She's told us that she's taking legal advice about it. She wasn't a spy, she's definitely not a traitor - she's not even political.

"She is upset but maintains she hasn't done anything wrong and I believe her."

Mr Houlding said his daughter had been born locally, had grown up in Burley and gone to school in the area, but had not lived in the village since leaving to go to university in 1982.

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