Dame Stella Rimington, former MI5 director general, dies at 90

Dame Stella Rimington, MI5's first female director general, has died at the age of 90, her family has said.

Dame Stella, who headed the security service from 1992 to 1996, was widely credited as being the model for Dame Judi Dench's M in the James Bond films.

She joined MI5 full time in 1969, and served as deputy director general in 1991 before being promoted to director general a year later.

"She died surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath," her family said in a statement.

Paying tribute to Dame Stella, current MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum said his predecessor, as the first publicly stated female head of any intelligence agency in the world, "broke through long-standing barriers and was a visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership".

"Her leadership ushered in a new era of openness and transparency about the work MI5 does to keep this country safe, a legacy that continues to this day," he said.

Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, said Dame Stella was a "true trailblazer".

In a statement on its website, MI5 said she had a varied career in the service "including roles in counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism".

"MI5 underwent far-reaching transformation under Dame Stella's leadership," it said.

"She oversaw MI5 taking lead responsibility for countering Irish republican terrorism in Great Britain, the move of MI5's headquarters to Thames House, and instituted a policy of greater public openness to demystify the work of MI5 including beginning a programme of releasing MI5 files to The National Archives."

Born in 1935 in South Norwood, south London, Dame Stella got her first role at MI5 as a part-time clerk typist in India, where she had accompanied her husband on a diplomatic posting four years earlier.

The Cold War and threats posed by the Soviet Union dominated much of her early career.

She was the first director general to be publicly identified when appointed - and when a newspaper published a photo of her house, she and her family had to move to a covert location for their own protection.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in 1999, Dame Stella said she had "thoroughly approved" of the decision to make her name public when she became director general, but added that she hadn't "really guessed quite how much interest there was going to be and the great level of press attention" there was.

She said "very rapidly" she and her family had had to move from their "ordinary London street" and "effectively go underground, which was a rather strange reverse when one had been trying to be more open".

During her time as director general and following the end of the Cold War, threats from Russia continued to take up her time.

Delivering the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture in 1994 at Whitehall, she spoke about how the number of Russian intelligence officers in the UK had "begun to creep up again", and warned that "we must therefore remain on our guard".

She also argued for the establishment of "the same sort of professional liaison with the Russian services" that she said had been "successfully established elsewhere, including in the former Eastern bloc".

She added, however, that there was "still a considerable way to go" to make that happen.

She was head of the service in 1996, when the IRA bombed Canary Wharf, killing two people.

She retired from the service the same year, and went on to publish her autobiography, Open Secret, in 2001. A number of spy novels followed.

While guest editing the Today programme in 2007, she said spy writers had created "a totally glamorous world around the profession of spying" that "bears very little relation to reality".

In 2014 she revealed on BBC Breakfast that her novels had to be submitted to the security service for clearance, and that she had occasionally been asked to change names and places by MI5.