NOVEMBER 10, 1997

A spy in the F1 camp

A member of the commercial department at Stewart Grand Prix in Milton Keynes has been arrested under Britain's Official Secrets Act.

A member of the commercial department at Stewart Grand Prix in Milton Keynes has been arrested under Britain's Official Secrets Act. Richard Tomlinson, an Anglo-New Zealand aeronautical engineer with a first-class honors degree from Cambridge University, worked for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service between September 1992 and August 1995. He was then dismissed. Upset by his firing Tomlinson decided to publish a book about his time as a secret agent. He was restrained from doing so by a series of injunctions obtained by the British Government and in February - after he had begun working at Stewart Grand Prix, he agreed not to disclose information. It was later discovered that after the settlement was reached he approached a publisher in Australia and given them a synopsis of his planned book.

Special Branch officers were sent to Australia to interview the publisher and Tomlinson was arrested. He was remanded in custody since last Monday, charged with unlawfully disclosing information gained during his time government service.

This weekend Tomlinson wrote an eight-page letter to The Sunday Times newspaper in which he gave details of MI6's efforts to stop him publishing his story and claiming that he is "a political prisoner".