Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a tribunal. MI6 refused, arguing that to do so would breach state security.

Tomlinson was imprisoned under the Official Secrets Act 1989 in 1997 after he gave a synopsis of a proposed book detailing his career with MI6 to an Australian publisher. He served six months of a twelve-month sentence before being paroled, after which he fled Britain. The book, named The Big Breach, was published in 2001 and was subsequently serialised by The Sunday Times. The book detailed various aspects of MI6 operations, alleging that it employed a mole in the German Bundesbank and that it held a "licence to kill", the latter later confirmed by the head of MI6 at a public hearing.

Tomlinson then attempted to assist Mohamed al-Fayed in his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and al-Fayed's son Dodi. Tomlinson claimed that MI6 had considered assassinating Slobodan Milošević, the president of Serbia, by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to blind the driver, and suggested that Diana and Dodi might have been killed by MI6 in the same way. MI6 confirmed that plans of that nature had been drafted regarding a different Eastern European official, but that the proposal had been swiftly rejected by management.

In 2009 MI6 apologised for its treatment of Tomlinson, dropped all threat of charges and agreed to unfreeze royalties on his book. Staff at MI6 have been allowed employment tribunals since 2000, and have been able to unionise since 2008.

Early life

Richard John Charles Tomlinson was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, and raised in the nearby town of Ngāruawāhia. He was the middle child in a family of three brothers. The family moved to the village of Armathwaite in Cumberland, England, in 1968. The young Tomlinson won a scholarship for the independent Barnard Castle School in County Durham, where he was a contemporary of Rory Underwood and Rob Andrew, who went on to become England rugby internationals. He excelled at mathematics and physics, and won a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1981. His friends included Gideon Rachman, who wrote him a reference after his tutor refused to do so. Tomlinson completed flying training with Cambridge University Air Squadron and won a Half Blue for Modern Pentathlon. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a starred First Class honours degree in aeronautical engineering in 1984, and was approached by MI6 shortly afterwards, whose offer he turned down. He enjoyed the experience, subsequently applied to join MI6, and officially joined the Service on 23 September 1991. He completed his training with MI6 and claims he was the best recruit on his course, being awarded the rarely given "Box 1" attribute by his instructing officers including Nicholas Langman.

Tomlinson worked in the "SOV/OPS" department, operating during the ending phases of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. He was posted to a diplomatic role in Moscow, and was one of the agents responsible for the retrieval of the Mitrokhin Archive in 1992. Whilst working there, it was discovered that the Conservative Party had been receiving donations from Serbian supporters.

From 1994 to 1995, Tomlinson worked in the operational counter-proliferation department. His first posting in this capacity was to work as an undercover agent against Iran, where he succeeded in penetrating the Iranian Intelligence Service. He posed as a British businessman, and infiltrated a network of arms dealers that included Nahum Manbar.

MI6 dismissed him on 22 May 1995 as he came to the end of his extended probationary period. Tomlinson's probationary period had been extended over the standard six-month duration due to his senior line manager's doubts about his personality. Tomlinson claimed that he had become suicidally depressed following the death of his long-term girlfriend from cancer and that he had been suffering from post-traumatic stress after witnessing violence against a civilian during the siege of Sarajevo, and that MI6 had been ill-equipped to handle his condition. MI6 argued that he was dismissed for "not being a team player, lacking motivation and having a short-term interest in the service", but later conceded that he had experienced a "personality clash" with his senior line manager. Another reason given for his dismissal was for "going on frolics on his own". Tomlinson argued that his supervisors had unfairly disregarded his personal circumstances. Since 2000, employees of MI6 have had the same employment rights as other British citizens, including written contracts and access to employment tribunals. However, MI6 refused to allow these procedures to be applied retroactively to Tomlinson's case. MI6 have not succeeded in obtaining another PII certificate since the Tomlinson case.

The Big Breach

thumbnail|right|[[Fort Monckton in Hampshire, which Tomlinson asserts is an MI6 training facility]]

Tomlinson moved to the Costa del Sol in Spain for 18 months from early 1996. Realising that a disgruntled former spy could be problematic for the agency, the aide-de-camp to the head of MI6 was enlisted to attempt to appease Tomlinson in February 1997. He offered him a £15,000 loan and a marketing job with Jackie Stewart's Formula One racing team, in return for a promise of silence.

Tomlinson returned to Britain, and in October 1997 was arrested and accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act 1989, after delivering a seven-page synopsis of The Big Breach to the Australian office of Transworld, a British publisher. On 18 December 1997 he was sentenced to 12 months in prison after pleading guilty.

After the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ruled in his favour, the book was made available in the UK.

Reception

The Economist criticised the "mess" that MI6 had made in failing to handle the Tomlinson case properly: "Recruiting Mr Tomlinson looks like a bad mistake, and his sacking seems to have been clumsily handled." He concluded, however, that the book "left me with the feeling that the spooks in Whitehall could have avoided a great deal of adverse publicity by agreeing to Tomlinson's original proposal: an employment tribunal held in camera." Tomlinson removed the references to Mandela in the British edition of the book, conceding that Mandela was probably unaware that the officials with whom he spoke were affiliated with MI6.

Other alleged breaches and assertions

List of MI6 agents

In May 1999, a list of 116 alleged MI6 agents was sent to the LaRouche movement's publication Executive Intelligence Review, a weekly magazine which published it online. Its names included Andrew Fulton, who had recently retired, Christopher Steele, David Spedding and Richard Dearlove. MI6 biographer Stephen Dorril explained that most of the names were "light-cover" sources who worked out of embassies or missions posing as diplomats. Dorril argued, "it is well known that rival intelligence networks know who these people are and accept them."

Tomlinson wrote, "If MI6 had set out to produce a list that caused me the maximum incrimination, but caused them the minimum damage, they could not have done a better job." He also said, "It mystifies me why MI6 gave the list credibility. If they were really worried about the safety of their agents they could have denied it." Government officials later conceded that the list did not originate from Tomlinson. He had suggested that MI6 was monitoring Diana before her death and that her driver on the night she died, Henri Paul, had been an MI6 informant, and that her death resembled plans he saw during 1992 for the assassination of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, using a bright light to cause a traffic accident. He moved to Germany until he was hounded out by officials, whereupon he moved to Italy. From 2006 to 2007, Tomlinson maintained a series of blogs detailing his treatment. His Riviera home was raided by police in 2006.

In 2007, government lawyers decided not to prosecute him for publishing The Big Breach. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was no real prospect of conviction in a jury trial, which would reveal "sensitive matters".

Personal life

In 1998, Tomlinson was described as possessing "the air of slight arrogance that goes with good looks, a hard-trained body and a sharp intellect". The Geneva press reported that he had a "perfect command of French".

References

  • 2008 Diana Inquest transcript - morning session
  • 2008 Diana Inquest transcript - afternoon session
  • Exhibit from 2008 Diana Inquest
  • Second exhibit