Leak of a Sensitive Kind: Docs on Royal Navy ‘Hunter-Killer’ Sub Reportedly Left in Pub Loo

When someone pops into a pub loo after a pint or two, the last thing he (or she) would expect to come across would be sensitive documents blowing the lid on the operating characteristics of a nuclear-powered fleet submarine of the Royal Navy. But that is precisely what is reported to have happened in Cumbria.

An investigation has been launched by the UK Royal Navy in the wake of a report that someone off for a tinkle at The Furness Railway, a Wetherspoon establishment in Barrow-in-Furness, might have made a ‘leak’ of a rather more serious kind.

Some files marked “Official Sensitive” relating to the inner workings of the HMS Anson, the UK Royal Navy’s advanced nuclear-powered “hunter-killer” submarine of the Astute-class, worth £1.3Bln, were left behind in the pub’s loo.

Incidentally, The Furness Railway, which is described as having attracted quite a crowd that day, is just a stone’s throw away from BAE Systems' shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, where the submarine was commissioned.

Twitter screenshot showing the HMS Anson

© Photo : Twitter

HMS Anson is the fifth of the Astute-class submarines, which joined the Royal Navy’s fleet - already comprising HMS Astute, Ambush, Artful and Audacious - in August 2022.

The documents that were so casually strewn in a cubicle at the pub’s lavatory were reportedly of the kind that submariners use when learning “how to isolate and depressurise elements of its system”.

Astute-class submarine HMS Artful at Faslane Naval Base, Rhu, Scotland on March 18, 2016.

© AFP 2023 / ANDY BUCHANAN

A spokesman for the Royal Navy was quick to dismiss any speculation that classified docs had been mishandled, telling the media:

“These are generic training documents that carry no classified information. However, we take all security matters extremely seriously and will investigate the circumstances of their discovery.”

One naval source was cited as saying that the documents in question “enable submariners and contractors to understand how systems interact. They do not detail how they work, just that they exist”.