A new biography claims that a man hanged as a traitor in the Second World War, who entered Britain by flying boat through Poole, may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Former Bournemouth and Dorset Echo journalist, Ed Perkins, researched and wrote ‘Britain’s Forgotten Traitor’ after discovering that Oswald John Job was arrested for intending to spy during the war.

Job was born in London where he married.

But he ditched his wife and their child to emigrate to Paris.

All was going well for Job until the Germans marched into Paris.

They arrested him and had him interned.

After nearly three years behind the wire, he did a deal with the Nazis.

They would release him provided he agreed to spy for them.

He was to act as a courier, carrying expensive jewellery to pass on to a secret agent in London, and take invisible ink and a secret code to send messages back to the Germans.

He arrived by flying boat at Poole where the port security officers, working for MI5, smelt a rat and had him tailed.

Just three weeks later he was arrested.

After interrogation at a prison for spies in London, he ended up at the end of a hangman’s noose.

The Old Bailey jury and the judge were convinced of his guilt.

Ed, however, disagrees, even though he accepts there is a mountain of evidence against him.

The 68-year-old reveals letters, written by Job when interned and discovered after Paris was liberated, in which he offers to spy for the Germans.

But Ed believes that Job was telling the truth in claiming that he never intended to carry out his mission.

He said: “The character of the man was such that he was loyal only to himself.

“I believe the temptation to hold on to the valuable diamond ring and tiepin would have trumped instructions of the Germans who had given him little incentive to carry out his mission.

“I would argue that the commandant of the spy jail in London, Colonel Robin ‘Tin-eye’ Stephens, thought so too, referring to him as a ‘shabby crook’.”

‘Britain’s Forgotten Traitor’ will be published by Amberley Publishing on February 15, price £20.

Pre-order copies of the 288-page hardback book, priced at £18, are available direct from the publisher here.

Ed Perkins was formerly Deputy Editor at the Bournemouth Daily Echo and also Assistant Editor and Chief Sub-Editor at the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton.

During his career he also worked for many other papers, including the Dorset Echo, as well as, for two-and-a-half years, at the Adoption Centre at Monkey World.

Ed’s wife, Frances Maynard, is a novelist who has written The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr and Maggsie McNaughton’s Second Chance.

The couple, who live in Parkstone, Poole, have a daughter and two granddaughters.