Ex-UK intelligence worker jailed for taking top secret data home

London: A former British intelligence worker who endangered national security by taking top secret data home was on Friday jailed for seven and a half years.

Hasaan Arshad, 25, pleaded guilty in March to one charge under the Computer Misuse Act, committed between August and September 2022 while working at British signals intelligence agency GCHQ.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson said the top secret material Arshad had downloaded contained the names of 17 GCHQ employees and that removing it from a secure environment brought the risk of it "falling into the wrong hands".

"His actions damaged confidence in the UK's security," Atkinson told London's Old Bailey court.

Judge Maura McGowan sentenced Arshad to six years in prison for the Computer Misuse Act offence and a further 18 months for two offences of making indecent images of children, to which he had pleaded guilty in 2023.

His lawyer Nina Grahame said Arshad had taken the data due to his "perfectionism" at the end of a year-long placement with GCHQ because he had not completed his work on a particular project.

She said Arshad accepted he had caused a risk to national security but added: "He did not intend to cause such a risk."