Britain’s defence ministry launched an urgent investigation on Friday after a football fan discovered piles of sensitive military documents scattered across a street in northern England.
Newcastle United supporter Mike Gibbard had been heading to a game on March 16 when he stumbled upon the papers, which were spilling out of a black bin bag in the street. Gibbard described the scene on BBC Radio Newcastle, saying the documents "spread all the way up the road".
"I peered down and started to see names on bits of paper and numbers, and thought 'what’s that?'" Gibbard recalled.
The BBC reported that many of the papers, which were torn, contained sensitive information such as details about soldiers’ ranks, shift patterns, weapon issue records, and emails. Some papers were marked "OFFICIAL - SENSITIVE", and one sheet referenced "armoury keys and hold IDS codes," suggesting links to an intruder detection system. According to the BBC, several documents appeared to be related to the Catterick army garrison, Britain’s largest, but security consultant Gary Hibberd warned that the breach could compromise national security.
"The impact and scale of this is quite big – it’s not just a blunder," Hibberd told AFP. "This will be investigated within the highest levels of the military."
In response, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson stated, "We are looking into this urgently and the matter is the subject of an ongoing internal investigation." The spokesperson confirmed that "documentation allegedly relating to the department was recently handed in to the police."
Northumbria Police told AFP that they had been alerted to the discovery in the Scotswood district. The police subsequently handed the papers over to the defence ministry.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that "appropriate action will be taken in response to any potential information breach."
UK government guidelines specify that sensitive documents should be incinerated, pulped, or shredded. However, in the past, confidential papers have ended up in some unusual places, such as in 2008 when a British civil servant left a folder marked "Top Secret" on a train seat in London.
