‘It was totally humiliating – I was treated like a terrorist’
The Metropolitan Police face accusations of using heavy-handed tactics in their investigation into the leaking of the former British ambassador in Washington’s confidential memos. In July 2019 the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command launched Operation Asperite into the leaks that led to a major diplomatic row with then president Donald Trump and the British ambassador Lord Darroch’s eventual resignation. After three years and without bringing any charges, Asperite has been shut down amid questions over the handling of the investigation and whether it was launched under pressure from Downing Street. The civil servant who was arrested under the Official Secrets Act as part of the operation has revealed their harrowing story to The Daily Telegraph in their first interview since being cleared.
Just before 6am on a cold morning on Oct 13 2020, a civil servant was asleep in bed when 14 armed counter-terrorism police officers battered down his door, stormed into his flat and arrested him.
The official’s alleged crime was to have passed on diplomatic cables, written by the UK’S former ambassador in Washington, which were heavily critical of President Trump.
In the hunt for the Whitehall mole, the full apparatus of the state was used to target the civil servant – whom we shall call “Robert”.
Wearing paramilitary-style body armour, the armed officers swooped in under the cover of darkness, detaining him under the Official Secrets Act, a law meant to be used to hunt down hostile spies and enemies of the state.
Robert, who worked for the Department for International Trade (DIT), was recovering from cancer surgery when the police made their move.
“They dragged me from my bedroom to the living room and started interrogating me while I was disorientated and dangerously sick.
“I was dehydrated from diarrhoea caused by a postsurgery infection and kept having to use the toilet while I was being interrogated. The police crowded into my lavatory while
I was defecating.
“It was totally
‘I attempted suicide, I had cancer and was living among drug addicts … the Civil Service did not care’
humiliating and disorientating – I was treated like a terrorist.”
Speaking to The Telegraph in his first interview since the dawn raid, the former suspect has accused the Met of acting like a “secret police in a tinpot state” and of breaking multiple human rights laws in their investigation.
During the swoop, three policemen also burst into the room of Robert’s flatmate, a young female doctor, who was getting ready for work.
The flat was ravaged: cupboards were ripped out, panels were torn from the walls and the police even emptied a cereal box onto the floor in a desperate hunt for evidence.
After three years and a massive effort from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, no charges have been brought and the investigation, known as Operation Asperite, has been officially shut down.
A lack of evidence and concerns that further inquiries would not be in the public interest led to the Met closing the operation in July of this year.
David Davis, the Conservative MP, criticised Operation Asperite, telling this newspaper: “The Official Secrets Act’s purpose is to go after traitors, foreign spies and enemies of the state, not public servants who release documents in the public interest.
“Operation Asperite has been a colossal waste of public time and money, and is a worrying case of police overreach.
“It looks as though the investigation was launched under political pressure from Downing Street. If so, it shows our policing and justice system at its worst.”
Since Robert’s arrest, his life has turned upside down; he has gone from being a content, well-paid and highly respected Whitehall official to becoming homeless, even living among heroin addicts for a time, all while suffering from cancer and several mental health disorders. He says the Civil Service and the
police drove him to attempt suicide.
In July 2019, Sir Kim Darroch as he was then known, resigned as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, following the publication of his diplomatic telegrams (Diptels as they are known in Foreign Office speak), which described President Trump as “insecure” and “incompetent”.
Boris Johnson’s refusal to defend the ambassador during a Tory leadership debate with Jeremy Hunt
effectively ended Lord Darroch’s career in Washington.
I must now declare an interest. I was the journalist behind those reports in The Mail on Sunday, and later in The Sun, regarding Lord Darroch and the myriad scandals that have followed the former diplomat.
I have not, despite the police asking me, named the source (or sources) of my stories, and I never will.
Soon after the release of Lord Darroch’s embarrassing Diptels to the press, President Trump hit back at the British diplomat, tweeting: “I do not know the ambassador, but he is not liked or well thought of within the US. We will no longer deal with him.”
On July 10 2019, four days after the initial publication of the story, a Downing Street spokesman said there had been “initial discussions with the police” regarding opening a criminal inquiry into the leaks.
Two days later, Neil Basu, then assistant commissioner to the Met, announced the police would investigate the matter, claiming there was a “clear public interest in bringing the person or people responsible to justice.”
Westminster was alight with rumours about who the leaker was and whether more material was about to be released.
Mr Basu soon issued a highly unusual warning to journalists who may have had more Diptels in their possession, saying: “The publication of leaked communications, knowing the damage they have caused or are likely to cause, may also be a criminal matter.”
One year passed, with Operation Asperite appearing to have gone cold. However, under the radar, the police were stepping up their investigation.
Robert now realises he was under surveillance long before his arrest.
“In the summer of 2020, I received a polite knock at my door. A female officer showed me her badge and informed me that she was investigating alleged criminals across the street.
“She asked if she could use my balcony to observe them. Being a law-abiding citizen, I took her at her word and permitted her to walk through my flat and use my balcony.
“I did not see her again until Oct 13 2020, when she was raiding my home.”
Robert, who denies any wrongdoing, says his life was put at risk by the heavy-handed tactics of the counter-terrorism police.
“Upon arrival at the police station on Oct 13, I was searched, padded down and mug shots were taken.
“I sat in a cold cell for most of the day on the lavatory, where there was no toilet roll and I became ever more dehydrated. I did not eat until 24 hours later, when I was at home.”
Robert waited all day in a chilly cell before the formal interrogation began late in the evening.
“The police spent most of the interview asking me about Isabel Oakeshott [another journalist involved in the leaks] and Steven Edginton, as well as asking me about my political affiliations, which was wrong.
“I was even asked how I voted in the Brexit referendum. I refused to answer the question as that was a violation of my human rights.
“They tried to paint me as a Rightwing Brexiteer and a Trump supporter even though I used to work for the Democrats in the United States.”
After an hour of questioning and several more hours of waiting, Robert was released.
“When I finally got into my building, I was shocked by what I found.
“My flatmate was in a state of trauma and informed me that she was moving out.
“The flat had been trashed and everything had been upended.
“This was totalitarian regime behaviour.”
Eventually, after the police contacted Robert’s landlord, he was forced onto the streets, his bank accounts were frozen and his passport was taken away as part of his bail conditions.
“For the first time in my life, I became homeless and was forced to live in a shelter run by a Christian charity.”
For the seven months Robert was under bail he says his life became unbearable.
“I attempted suicide, I had cancer and was living among drug addicts.”
“The Civil Service and the police did not care an inch for my welfare.
“I was told this was all necessary to protect British national security from me. I was told I was that much of a dangerous threat.”
“Their politically motivated investigation was unprecedented; no other civil servant accused of leaking to a journalist has been treated as I have been.”
On April 30 last year Robert’s bail conditions were dropped.
In June of the same year Angus Lapsley, a senior Ministry of Defence official, admitted to leaving top secret documents at a bus stop in Kent, which were later published by the BBC.
The documents were related to Nato troops in Afghanistan, and the Royal Navy’s movements in the Black Sea around Crimea.
Mr Lapsley faced no charges and was moved to the Foreign Office, where he still works today with his security clearance intact.
Robert faced an internal investigation by the DIT and was suspended with pay until his sick leave ran out.
Last week the police, in attempting to hand back his personal possessions, unwittingly gave Robert’s friend (who was picking them up for him) his government laptop and phone, both of which contained Official-sensitive documents.
The friend was a US trade official, meaning the police had accidentally handed over secret British files to a representative of a foreign government.
The items are now in the process of being returned to the police after an apology was offered for the mistake.
Robert now plans to seek damages from DIT, the Foreign Office and the Met, about which he has put in a complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
“I will take my case to the High Court and fight for the rest of my life, if I have to, for justice.
“No one should have to go through what I have been through ever again.”
Responding to The Telegraph, the Met acknowledged that a complaint had been received in February 2022 about the conduct of officers during these arrests.
An internal police review was undertaken which “found that there was no misuse of powers by officers or breaches of Standards of Professional Behaviour”.