[3] Chapman returned to Soho and spent some time working casual jobs, from barman to film extra, but his lifestyle outstripped his earnings – gambling debts and a taste for fine alcohol soon left him broke.

He slipped into fraud and petty theft and, after several run-ins with the law, finally received his first civilian prison sentence, two months in Wormwood Scrubs for forging a cheque.

The execution of the crime involved Chapman disguising himself as a member of the Metropolitan Water Board in order to gain access to a house in Edgware Road, from which he made his way into the shop next door by smashing through the wall.

Chapman had been dining with his lover and future fiancée Betty Farmer at the Hotel de la Plage immediately before his arrest and, when he saw plain-clothes police coming to arrest him for crimes on the mainland, made a spectacular exit through the dining room window (which was shut at the time).

[6][7] He was equipped with wireless, pistol, cyanide capsule and £1,000 and, amongst other things, was given the task of sabotaging the de Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield.

[6][8] The British secret services had been aware of Chapman's existence for some time, via Ultra (decrypted German messages), and would know his date of departure.

In the end, Operation Nightcap was envisioned: Rather than conduct a full-scale manhunt, planes from RAF Fighter Command would trail Chapman's aircraft to identify his landing site (from one of three possible options).

[5] During the night of 29–30 January 1943, Chapman with MI5 officers faked a sabotage attack on his target, the de Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, where the Mosquito was being manufactured.

Radio messages were sent to the Abwehr requesting extraction by boat or submarine, and Chapman was set to work learning a cover story ready for the inevitable interrogations.

Reed told him to stick as close to the truth as possible, to help make the lies more realistic, and he was coached in speaking slowly to cover any hesitations.

The list was carefully constructed so that, should Chapman be broken, its content would not show German intelligence the gaps in Allied knowledge.

A fake identity, Hugh Anson, was constructed and the relevant paperwork was obtained before Chapman joined the crew of The City of Lancaster, sailing out of Liverpool.

[20] During this period he was also involved in doping of dogs in greyhound racing and was associating with criminal elements in West End nightclubs.

He was granted a pardon for his pre-war activities and was reported by MI5 to have been living "in fashionable places in London always in the company of beautiful women of apparent culture".

[22] He abandoned both women after the war and instead married his former lover Betty Farmer, whom he had left in a hurry at the Hotel de la Plage in 1938.

Dagmar served a six-month prison sentence for consorting with an apparently German officer: thinking that Chapman was dead, she was unable to prove that he was a British agent.

[citation needed] On his retirement, MI5 expressed some apprehension that Chapman might take up crime again when his money ran out and if caught would plead for leniency because of his highly secret wartime service.

[24] Chapman had his wartime memoirs serialised in France to earn money, but he was charged alongside co-defendant Wilfred Macartney under the Official Secrets Act and fined £50.

After the war, Chapman remained friends with Baron Stephan von Gröning, his Abwehr handler (wartime alias Doctor Graumann),[21] who had fallen on hard times.

[7] In the 1950s producer Ted Banborough announced plans to make a film about Chapman starring Michael Rennie or Stanley Baker, but this did not go ahead.

In his autobiography, Plummer said that Chapman was to have been a technical adviser on the film, but the French authorities would not allow him in the country because he was still wanted over an alleged plot to kidnap the Sultan of Morocco.

[33] In May 1989 Chapman made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark, alongside Tony Benn, Lord Dacre, James Rusbridger, Miles Copeland and others.

In 2011, BBC Two broadcast Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story, a Timewatch documentary presented by Ben Macintyre based on his book.