A SENIOR civil servant was fined £2,500 today for leaving top-secret documents on a train.

City of Westminster magistrates' court heard that the highly sensitive Whitehall intelligence files "had the potential to damage national security and UK international relations".

Richard Jackson, 37, a high-ranking director from Yateley, Hampshire, who had been working at the Cabinet Office, pleaded guilty to breaching the Official Secrets Act by leaving them behind. One was marked top secret and the other was mid-level security.

The court heard that Jackson who had a previous warning for not locking secret files in his safe had accidentally scooped up the files with other papers as he left his office on 9 June.

As he returned to the office the next morning he put the orange folder the secret files were in on the seat beside him and then got off at Waterloo without them. By the time he realised he had forgotten them the train was already on its way to Woking.

The documents were passed to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner by a member of the public who discovered them on the train which was bound for Surrey.

The court heard that Jackson was "physically sick" when he discovered their loss and spent most of the day on a frantic tour of lost property offices to recover them.

During today's proceedings Jackson, who spent much of his time with his head in his hands, spoke only to confirm his name and to confirm his guilty plea.

The court heard this was the first prosecution of its kind since the Act was passed nearly 20 years ago.

Neil Saunders, defending, said his client accepted his mistake but "there was never any risk to any lives whatsoever".

He said: "He was under extreme pressure at this time and it may well be partly because of his own role and the work he was being asked to conduct that he has made this gross error of judgment."

The court heard Jackson did not report the loss of the files until the next day as his immediate bosses were abroad.

Prosecutor Deborah Walsh said: "This delay in reporting delayed any action to recover the files There's ample evidence that Mr Jackson failed to take such care as may reasonably be expected."

Jackson, who has a wife and two step-daughters, has returned to his former department, the Ministry of Defence, has been demoted three grades and taken a "drastic" pay cut.

• 

  Sex, lies and the Stasi

  On this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall was finally breached, ending the reign of East Germany’s feared security service. Here Anne McElvoy, who spent much of the Eighties in the city, recalls her encounters with the spooks

  ---

• 

  The geeky-girl solo artists descending on the music scene

  Kookiness is what sells music these days and these opinionated artists have it in spades, says Jasmine Gardner

  ---

Why Sam's in the clear over that M&S dress

At last the truth about the M&S spotted dress that Sam Cam wore to the Conservative Party Conference

All stories