Bernard Francis Castle Floud (22 March 1915 – 10 October 1967) was a British farmer, television company executive and politician.
He was born in Epsom, Surrey, the son of Sir Francis Floud, the British High Commissioner to Canada and was educated at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, and Wadham College, Oxford.
In March he agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment, but had a relapse in June, and after a holiday in August he returned to his constituency work.
Floud had been friends with many Communists while at Oxford, and was directly named by two separate inactive agents as having worked a spy in the past, handling recruitment.
The next day, 10 October 1967, he killed himself[2] allegedly by taking an overdose of barbiturates[3] and also gassing himself with carbon monoxide at his St Pancras home.
The author Chapman Pincher, in Their Trade is Treachery (1981), alleged that Floud had been presented by MI5 with evidence that he had worked for the KGB and recruited others to its service.
Another person linked to the ring was Phoebe Pool, who admitted passing messages to the Floud brothers from the KGB spy-handler "Otto", identified as Arnold Deutsch.