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The former wife of a British diplomat today told of her disgust after he was caught on film having sex with two prostitutes in Russia.
After the explicit video footage was posted on a news website, Sally Reader said she is glad she had divorced James Hudson.
Mr Hudson, from Poplar, stood down as deputy consul general in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg in the Urals following the furore about the clip.
It shows the portly, bespectacled 37-year-old enter a room, reportedly in a brothel in Ekaterinburg, and sit on a sofa, kissing two blonde women in their underwear. The video then cuts to explicit scenes of them having sex.
Mrs Reader, a probation worker from Broadstairs, Kent, who was married to Mr Hudson for one year during the Nineties and has a young daughter with him, said: "He's changed a lot because he certainly did not look the way he does now.
"He never wore glasses and he was thin. I'm glad I got out when I did. I want nothing to do with what he's done."
A link to the film, which lasts four minutes and 18 seconds, was posted on a Russian news website under the title "Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia".
In it, Mr Hudson first walks into a room wearing nothing but an open dressing gown. He is holding a wine glass.
He kisses one prostitute, then another arrives and sits on his lap. Before long the women are down to their underwear, and the trio drink champagne. The film then cuts to the bedroom for a shot of Mr Hudson and the two naked women on the bed.
A spokesman for the Russian interior ministry in Ekaterinburg yesterday confirmed the video was genuine.
It has been suggested that the film was made by agents from Russia's FSB counter-intelligence service in a bid to blackmail Mr Hudson.
An unnamed security source said: "Russian intelligence has a long history of making sex films to control people or further its aims. It is also virtually unthinkable that this could have been widely published online without some sort of tacit official approval."
Mrs Reader, 36, who has remarried, added: "I had no idea James was in Russia. He talked of becoming a teacher."
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed that Mr Hudson had resigned but refused to comment on whether it was him in the video.
Mr Hudson, who joined the Foreign Office in 1994, has had postings to Sarajevo, Havana and Budapest. He has returned to Britain and gone into hiding after resigning.
Reader views (5)
We have a Government who has wrecked our economy, brought the country to its knees and created a new soviet style political elite with its own "KGB" style police teams recording details of everyone involved in legal protests, and yet you deem this tale to be newsworthy?
Shame on you.
- Graham Smith, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, 13/07/2009 06:48
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When in Russia do like the Russians...
- Caroline, Islington, London, 10/07/2009 13:25
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Much fuss about nothing. Everyone was consenting. What's the problem.
- Johnny Hamer, Fulham., London, 10/07/2009 12:39
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I'm not condoning what he did; but how bad was it really? He is single and got a leg over in a foreign country with a couple of tarts. I presume Russian intelligence got nowhere with him as all has been revealed.
- Jules_London, london, 10/07/2009 12:02
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Mrs Readers remarks come across as petty and mealy mouthed. On first reading this I was under the impression that she was married to him now, such is her venom, rather than back in the Nineties, for a single year. All he has done is have sex with a prostitute, yet she is portraying him as some sort of pervert (with glasses, of all things!). She sounds almost glad that he has lost his job over this. What a vindictive person.
- Alan Bellis, Goole, 10/07/2009 11:27
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