Accident or assassination? The Torbay death that sparked a spy story

A young Army major’s fatal fall from a submarine gangplank in Torquay harbour in 1955 should have been the start and end of a tragic accident — until a self-declared spy arrived at his widow’s door insisting it was murder.

A new podcast, Codename Badger, follows the lies, secrets and long fallout from Torbay to the far corners of the world, writes Peter Simpson.

Torbay looked much as it does now 70 years ago — the sweep of water framed by familiar hills, the mix-and-match of boats huddled behind harbour walls, nudging and bobbing at their moorings. 

In the Bay’s towns, people went about their business, casting half-glances at the one assured constant in their lives — the sea.

Like any coastal community, Torbay has always had another identity — that of a gateway, a threshold, a place where the tides bring mysteries from far-off worlds.

In November 1955, the sea washed up a raft of secrets and lies. 

This moment in Bay time is the starting point for Codename Badger, a new six-part podcast series that for the first time unravels a true-life Cold War spy mystery — as well as a story of control, love, grief, greed and the corrosive power of a lie that lasts a lifetime.

Robbie Mills, a young Army major from Devon, died while disembarking the submarine HMS Untiring, which had docked at Torquay Harbour. 

According to the report signed off by his superiors, Mills’ death was an accident. He had been invited aboard for an event involving more socialising than naval strategising, and alcohol flowed. The weather was foul, and as he headed ashore, Mills slipped from the gangplank to his untimely death.

For his widow, Josephine, there was little reason to disbelieve what she was told by the men in uniform and duly accepted the inquest’s straightforward cause of death, bleak and tragic as it was.

But within months of her husband’s passing came another knock at the door of the Ideford cottage she had shared with her late husband. A man introduced himself as Captain John Cottell. He claimed he had been Robbie’s best friend.

Then he delivered a message that froze the widow’s heart mid-beat: Robbie’s death, he said, was no accident.

Even more startling was his second claim. Her husband, Cottell told her, had been a fellow spy. He then alleged someone had tampered with the gangplank, leading to Robbie’s fall.

As intended, Cottell convinced Josephine that someone had wanted her beloved husband dead.

What begins in Torbay Harbour does not remain there. Like waves after breaking against Livermead cliffs, the story spills outward, spreading to the USA, across Europe, Russia and Brazil.

And like a tide, relentless questions flood the senses. Who really was Robbie Mills? What was he doing on board the submarine — and why, so soon after his death, did someone feel compelled to rewrite the already tragic narrative for his widow?

And what of Captain John Cottell, the self-declared spy who came knocking with the explosive secrets and claims?

If this all sounds like the set-up to a thriller, then that is part of the intention of the two journalists, Andy Clark and Eugene Henderson, who have spent the last three years digging for the truth behind this gripping tale.

But Codename Badger does not present itself solely as a story of glamorous espionage, the pair told Torbay Weekly. Far from it.

“It’s a study in control and deception — and the ways those forces can seep into a family’s private world. John Cottell was a control freak and had Josephine completely in his grasp for years,” Henderson said.

“Shortly after first knocking on her door, for example, he convinced her to scour the Daily Telegraph personal columns for secret messages. He had her spend more time on his intrigue than she did with her own children,” he added.

Josephine also received strange late-night phone calls, had her car tampered with and had items taken from her home — all part of a psychological campaign by Cottell to keep her under his ulterior influence.

“But that was only the start,” Clark said, adding: “We came to realise this was also a more intimate kind of investigation: what happens to a family when a single lie takes hold — how it can shape childhoods, warp relationships and echo long into the next generation.”

The podcast takes a generational turn through Nicky Hibbin, Josephine’s daughter, whose own life has been shaped by the spy who came knocking.

Journalists often talk of a story landing in their lap — the extra phone call made, the nth email written, one more door knocked that finally results in a breakthrough.

And so it was for Henderson who, semi-retired, moved to a small village in the south-west of France several years ago and met one of his new neighbours, Nicky, a retired GP from Devon.

“Nicky and I chatted as neighbours do, and one day she told me how her childhood was shaped by a ‘spy’ who appeared at their doorstep and changed her and her mother’s life forever.”

This serendipitous chance meeting — and the subsequent airing of family secrets and their long trail of consequences — gives “Codename Badger” its emotional engine.

This is not just a whodunnit about a suspicious death. It traces how a single intervention — a stranger with a story, arriving at precisely the moment a young family is most vulnerable — can alter the entire course of lives.

Nicky showed Henderson her own and her late mother’s files on her father’s death, and on Cottell. The pages, photos and other evidence created more questions than answers. Was Robbie Mills murdered? Just who was John Cottell — the strapping, tall, dapper man with a military-style moustache and a stiff upper lip? And why did he insert himself into Josephine’s and her children’s life with such intent? What was his motive?

Henderson roped in Clark and together they began a forensic study of the evidence, pulling at the threads.

One photo found shows Cottell on Paignton beach. After the war, he became a photographer with a pet monkey for a prop, snapping tourists on Torbay’s sands. He kept a house in King Street, Brixham — though he was rarely there, and when he was neighbours described him as friendly, though with a dark side. Was snapping holidaymakers for a living on Paignton beach just his spy cover story?

After moving to America Cottell started making his own headlines. He was making a six-figure fortune (around £150,000 — worth far more in today’s money) by working the American lecture circuit, where audiences paid top dollar to hear his tales of spying for H.M’s Secret Service in Nazi-occupied Europe, his close encounters with the KGB and his VIP connections — which supposedly included Russia’s Romanov family.

But some became suspicious. In 1985 an American newspaper declared Cottell was more Walter Mitty than James Bond. Not that it mattered to audiences at US Rotary Club lunches, who — after reading rave reviews — paid to hang on Cottell’s every derring-do word. That included his claim that he inspired characters in John le Carré novels, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He even signed copies of le Carré’s books handed to him by the awestruck.

Cottell dismissed his doubters as left-wing agitators seeking to undermine his courage, patriotism and success, and brushed aside jibes from other former spooks, jealous of his post-spying pay cheques. 

That the UK government said it had never heard of Cottell in any of his guises only added to his allure on the other side of the pond. Real secret agent-turned writer, le Carré, was more scathing, telling the media he was sick of Cottell riding his coattails, and that he was either mad or a fraud.

Yet no one could expose Cottell fully. The headlines died down and he continued to spin his life story until his death in 2021, aged 96.

Luckily for Henderson and Clark, Cottell, for all his supposed spy craft, left a trail of countless documents — diaries, bank statements, even recordings.

“We worked with the families on all sides of the story. And we were thrilled when we discovered that John Cottell recorded himself — a lot. We were handed a box of cassette tapes, among which was a conversation he’d recorded with Josephine. This was a stunning moment because it reveals how completely he had her believing everything he said for years,” said Clark.

Codename Badger plays with that tension as it pieces together how a lie can spiral and poison three generations, and how far people will go to protect the past. Anyone who has lived alongside a family secret will recognise in this unique series the spectrum of emotions, even if the details here are more extraordinary than most.

For Torbay, there is the added appeal of how global intrigue sometimes brushes past local landmarks without leaving a trace — until decades later, when you realise you have been walking past the opening scene of a far bigger story.

“We believe we have pieced together the truth, though we can’t be 100 per cent sure we’ve captured everything, given the tangled web Cottell wove. Perhaps some readers of Torbay Weekly and listeners of our podcast came across John Cottell, or knew people who did,” Clark said.

“They may also remember Robbie Mills and his family, who owned a Devon quarry. He was well known in the area and served as a councillor for many years after the Second World War. If so, we’d love to hear from them.”

Codename Badger is produced by Audio Always and is now available wherever you get your podcasts.