Official who lost top-secret papers was to be UK ambassador to NATO
Angus Lapsley, the UK civil servant who lost classified documents pertaining to the Royal Navy’s recent deployment to the Black Sea, is not being ruled out for promotion, despite leaving the top-secret MoD files at a bus stop in Kent.
A senior civil servant who left top-secret Ministry of Defence (MoD) files at a bus stop in Kent was being lined up to be the UK’s ambassador to NATO. Angus Lapsley’s promotion is now understood to be in doubt, but government sources have told the Guardian that it is not entirely ruled out.
The lost documents, which contained classified information on the Royal Navy’s recent deployment to the Black Sea and troop movements in Afghanistan, were handed in to the BBC. The broadcaster said one of the files was marked “Secret UK eyes only” and was printed on special pink MoD paper, meaning it should not have left MoD premises.
The MoD said in a statement to parliament that: “There was no evidence of espionage” and concluded that all the classified material was recovered after the leak to the BBC. There “has been no compromise of the papers by our adversaries”, the ministry added.
