the link does not work ruth*star.

I can imagine when all of this dies down a bit, that's when whoever is in possession of the data will be using it.

Unless you believe in majic. Nothing vanishes into thin air.

Could be a political motive here to humilate the government.

Only a handfull of people would have been in the chain of responsibilty for producing packing and posting the discs.

It's time the UK police proved their worth. If they can't solve this case heaven help us all.......

I hate the fact that some junior clerk is wearing the blame for this when in fact the orders come from much higher up the food chain. The people in charge should be shouldering this not blaming it on someone who was simply doing as he/she was told.

I have spoken with my bank and would advise others to, they can be helpful at helping you to protect your bank accounts for now.

I dont think these discs will ever turn up, they are gone for good.

Thats very true but as an ex civil servant I can confirm junior or not there are many jerks in the civil sevice both high level and low level........The jury is out as we do not know the history of the junior clerk in question. He/she may simply of ignored instructions from above.....


As I have said there would only be a very small chain of people involved with the movement of those discs. If the police cannot solve this then heaven help us all.

I do tend to believe it is a political crime and not intended for fraud.......Some civil servants are very poltical.....like it or not.......

As a current serving civil servant, I have to remind you of the maxim of never attributing to malice what can be accounted for by stupidity.

From what I have heard, in the office in Washington, just down the road, they have a section that does the appropriate shipping. That section was not used.

The other possible scenario could be that the junior official was asked to ship this down to the NAO who ordered it sent, and due to service level agreements this had to be done in a set time frame. If the other section was backlogged, then in order to comply, that section had to be bypassed.

Another scenario is that the junior was never told that this section was supposed to handle it.

And finally for the moment, closer to what has happened to me, the junior answered someone else's telephone and got some oik at the NAO who would not accept the "Can I take a message" request. I have had calls from people who believe we all know everyone's job and insisted on going into great detail, fortunately a more senior officer turned up so I could pass the call onto them. If the junior got a call from the NAO in that vain, then perhaps they got flustered and just complied with the request, using the internal post to process the demand ASAP.

The loss is either due to crass stupidity or malice of a political nature. Least likely fraud. The fact is with such an important object there should be a written trail of its movements.....Phone calls from her to eternity are a joke. A documented trail should have been left behind.

I repeat if the police cannot solve this they are as useless as the department responsible. .Nothing vanishes.....

My mum and dad got a letter in the post saying that their details were on the list, but not to worry. wtf?? of course they'll worry!