Two respected Royal Navy officers have been sacked after they had an affair while serving on Britain's nuclear submarines and endangered the nation's security by discussing top secret information over email. Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Stone and Lieutenant Sophie Brook put the secrecy of the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent at risk by sharing classified submarine movements which could have been intercepted by an enemy, a court martial heard.
Their messages contained the departure time as well as the direction, speed and depth of travel of Vanguard-class submarine HMS Victorious all of which 'would have been useful to an enemy' and risked weakening the 'cornerstone' of the nation's nuclear deterrent. The messages - to his Yahoo account - were sent as part of a 'clandestine sexual relationship' between the pair despite LtCdr Stone being married with two children.
The court heard both were highly respected officers and Lt Brook was considered a Royal Navy 'trailblazer' as the first female warfare officer on a nuclear sub and had even been tipped to become the first female captain of a submarine. Today their careers and reputations were in tatters, with 37 year old LtCdr Stone, who has served in the Royal Navy since 2003, dismissed from the military and handed a suspended prison sentence of four months
