Documents marked as 'official sensitive' have been found forgotten in a packed Wetherspoons pub toilet, and now The Royal Navy - which has since made the contents of the docs public - is carrying out an investigation into who dropped them.
When you think of Tim Martin’s J D Wetherspoon boozers, you're instantly drawn to the idea of cheap drinks and the wacky carpets that are so popular they have numerous Instagram profiles dedicated to them.
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However, we can bet that finding sensitive documents relating to a nuclear submarine isn’t something you’d stick on your Saturday night Spoons bingo card.
But according to The Sun, that’s exactly what happened to a customer of Barrow-in-Furness pub, the Furness Railway.
An anonymous source told the aforementioned paper that they ‘went into the toilet’ at the Cumbrian pub and discovered documents marked sensitive ‘lying on the floor of the toilet cubicle’.
“Anyone could have found them. It was lucky it wasn’t some deep-cover Russian spy," the source said.
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The sensitive files allegedly related to the £1.3bn HMS Anson and describe how the submarine - which is loaded with Spearfish torpedoes and Tomahawk land attack missiles - operates.
The sub, which was launched back in February, is 97m long and weighs a staggering 7,800 tonnes. It currently resides at His Majesty’s Naval Base in Clyde, Scotland.
Apparently, the vessel can circumnavigate the entire globe without having to resurface once due to its nuclear reactors needing to be refuelled just once every 25 years.
While the documents found in a toilet cubicle have caused a stir, a representative from The Royal Navy has put speculation to bed and revealed the contents to the press.
The spokesperson said: “These are generic training documents that carry no classified information.
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“However, we take all security matters extremely seriously and will investigate the circumstances of their discovery.”
Former sub captain, Commander Ryan Ramsay, backed up the spokesperson by telling The Sun: “It looks like someone has taken the pages off the boat to study.
“They are part of a book that covers all the systems on a sub. When [the recruits] do their basic submarine qualification they have to walk around the boat to demonstrate they know all the systems.
“It is good to see their commitment to training, but the pub is probably the wrong place,” he concluded.
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This isn’t the first time that sensitive information has been discarded in a public place.
Back in 2021, Ministry of Defence documents containing highly classified information had been found at a bus stop in Kent.
The documents in question were apparently marked ‘Secret UK Eyes Only’ and were said to hold information on HMS Defender and further details regarding possible UK military presence in Afghanistan.
Ella Scott