A former British soldier accused of passing secret information to Iran covertly gathered the names of service personnel, including those in special forces, a court has heard.

Daniel Khalife, 23, took a photo of a handwritten list of 15 soldiers, including some serving in the Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service (SBS), Woolwich Crown Court was told.

He took details from an internal spreadsheet of promotions in June 2021, sent to a WhatsApp group called Brew Room Boys, and then logged on to an internal HR system for booking leave to try to find out the soldiers’ first names, jurors heard.

Continuing the prosecution opening on Wednesday, Mark Heywood KC said: “The details on the spreadsheet included the promotion details for all sorts of units in the Army, including special forces who operated, as you might imagine, on a different basis to other parts of the armed services and ordinarily do not publish their membership or ranks or identity for very good, security-related reasons.”

Mr Heywood said Khalife went on to the HR system “as if to book leave” and then used the “approver box” to search for individuals, taking screenshots of seven of the names on the original list of 15.

None of the people had any involvement with him booking time off, the court heard.

Mr Heywood added: “He was clearly researching and gathering and recording that information.”

Jurors were shown a photograph from Khalife’s iPhone of a handwritten list of 15 soldiers that he had made, including their service number, rank, initials, surname and unit, including the SAS and SBS.

Prosecutors claim Khalife was paid in cash by the Iranian intelligence service for secret information gathered during his time in the Army.

After he was arrested over the allegations, Khalife is accused of escaping from Wandsworth Prison by strapping himself to the underside of a food delivery truck on September 6 2023.

Khalife who was brought up in Kingston, south-west London, by his Iranian mother, and joined the Army in September 2018, two weeks before his 17th birthday.

Prosecutors claim he first made contact with Iran in April 2019.

Khalife travelled to Istanbul from August 4-10 2020, Mr Heywood told the jury, adding that Khalife was in Istanbul originally “with a view to go onwards”.

He said: “That was, says the prosecution, an attempt at least to meet, engage, face-to-face directly. The original attempt was to go to Iran.”

In a message from a phone accessed, Khalife said he had “delivered a package to them”, the court heard, with Mr Heywood added: “He’s clearly reporting to a third party what happened in Istanbul.”

By the end of August 2020, six months after he was posted to the 16th Signal Regiment in Stafford, messages showed he was willing to gather information “to order, for as long as they wanted”, the court heard.

On August 28 2020, Khalife spent an hour messaging a contact saved as “David Smith”, describing an internal military system which would identify service personnel.

He told the contact: “I won’t leave the military until you tell me to”, before adding: “25+ years.”

Khalife went on: “I need to go to your supervisor and ask what specific regiment or sector you’re interested in.”

It is alleged he stayed in contact with Iranian handlers while posted to Fort Hood in Texas in the US between February and April 2021, where he took a series of screenshots of systems marked “Secret”, including a password record sheet.

In April that year Khalife was granted the second highest level of Nato security, one below “cosmic top secret”.

The court heard how in November 2021, Khalife made two anonymous calls to MI5 from an unregistered mobile, having earlier tried to contact MI6.

He said he had been in contact with Iran for more than two years and thought he could help the British security services, and wanted to return to his normal life.

At the same time Khalife also saved an electronic note that set out how he had decided to start his own intelligence operation to prove himself after he was told he was not eligible for higher level vetting.

The document read: “I decided to start my own intel operation to prove that I was able to do this.

“All I have ever wanted to do was something in intel.

“The whole reason I joined was to work in intel. I decided to use my connection to IR (Iran) to my advantage.”

But Mr Heywood said at the same time he was also researching flights to Iran and remained in contact with his Iranian handlers.

In December 2021, he messaged them to say he only had time to travel to Beirut rather than Tehran while on annual leave, adding: “I have some big documents to send you from my time in Blandford.”

Khalife was arrested at MoD Stafford on January 6 2022, a search warrant was carried out and items found included a black notebook with writing in it including the words “stocks”, “property” and “spy”, the jury was told.

The jury has already heard that Khalife undertook specialist training in Blandford Forum, in Dorset for a year from 2019.

As well as the alleged prison escape, he denies a charge of gathering, publishing or communicating information that might be useful to an enemy, namely Iranian intelligence, contrary to the Official Secrets Act between May 1 2019 and January 6 2022.

He also denies having elicited or attempted to elicit personal information about armed forces personnel that was likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism from a Ministry of Defence administration system on August 2 2021.