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Concept
Richard Tomlinson
Summary
Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a tribunal. MI6 refused, arguing that to do so would breach state security.
Tomlinson was imprisoned under the Official Secrets Act 1989 in 1997 after he gave a synopsis of a proposed book detailing his career with MI6 to an Australian publisher. He served six months of a twelve-month sentence before being given parole, whereupon he left the country. The book, named The Big Breach, was published in Moscow in 2001 (and later in Edinburgh), and was subsequently serialised by The Sunday Times. The book detailed various aspects of MI6 operations, alleging that it employed a mole in the German Bundesbank and that it had a "licence to kill", the latter later confirmed by the head of MI6 at a public hearing.
Tomlinson then attempted to assist Mohamed al-Fayed in his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and al-Fayed's son Dodi. Tomlinson claimed that MI6 had considered assassinating Slobodan Milošević, the president of Serbia, by staging a car crash using a powerful strobe light to blind the driver. He suggested that Diana and Dodi may have been killed by MI6 in the same way. Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 at the time, admitted that plans of that nature had been drafted regarding a different Eastern European official, but that the proposal had been swiftly rejected by management.
In 2009, MI6 agreed to allow Tomlinson to return to Britain, unfreeze royalties from his book and drop the threat of charges. MI6 also apologised for his mistreatment. Staff at MI6 have been allowed employment tribunals since 2000, and have been able to unionise since 2008.
Richard John Charles Tomlinson was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, and raised in the nearby town of Ngāruawāhia. He was the middle child in a family of three brothers.
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