Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer, has broken his silence to defend his Trump-Russia dossier and criticise the Mueller report as "too narrow."

In a rare public speaking appearance Mr Steele appeared at a "members only" event at the Oxford Union.

Mr Steele, who used to head the Russia desk at MI6, dismissed allegations that he was politically biased, saying he was “an opponent of President Putin," who was a "bully," according to a Daily Beast reporter who was present.

The Oxford Union itself published some of Mr Steele's remarks on Twitter.

In those comments Mr Steele said: "I stand by the integrity of our work, our sources and what we did.

"Trump himself doesn’t like intelligence because its ground truth is inconvenient for him.

"The reality check is that Russia is a hostile state as it is run at the moment, it is out to destabilise the West and it is nefarious in the way it goes about its business."

The Oxford Union also released photographs of Mr Steele speaking while seated next to a moderator.