Official fined for leaving secret files on train

LONDON (Reuters) - A senior civil servant who left secret intelligence files relating to Iraq and al Qaeda on a train was fined 2,500 pounds on Tuesday.

Richard Jackson, 37, from Yateley, Hampshire, admitted breaching the Official Secrets Act after he mislaid two documents when he inadvertently took them home on June 10.

He was physically sick when he realized he had lost the files on a train from London Waterloo to Surrey, the Press Association said. During the hearing, he spent much of the time with his head in his hands.

Sentencing Jackson at City of Westminster Magistrates Court, Judge Timothy Workman said a custodial sentence would have been inevitable if the loss had risked damaging national security.

"I am conscious that he has already paid a heavy penalty, a significant reduction in income and damage to his own and his family's health," the judge said.

Jackson was suspended after the incident but has since returned to work, in a position described as at least three grades lower than before.

Defense lawyer Neil Saunders said Jackson had been under extreme pressure at the time of the loss.

"It may well be partly because of his own role, the team he was leading and the work he was being asked to conduct that he has made this gross error of judgment," he said. Jackson did not report the loss of the files until the following day as his immediate bosses were abroad.

Prosecutor Deborah Walsh said: "This delay in reporting delayed any action to recover the files."

One of the documents was marked top secret and the other was mid-level security. Jackson was on secondment from the Ministry of Defense to the Cabinet Office, the department that describes itself as the "head office" of government.

A Cabinet Office assessment said the loss had the "potential to damage national security and the UK's international relationships, but to date this appears negligible."

The files were passed to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; editing by Steve Addison)