Newsnight blunder ‘led to ‘Fall of Kabul’ whistleblower being sacked’

A whistle-blowing government civil servant was sacked after a senior member of the BBC‘s Newsnight team accidentally revealed her name by posting screenshots of leaked emails showing her name, a tribunal has heard.

Josie Stewart was axed by the Foreign, Commonweath and Development Office after sending the Corporation’s flagship news programme a series of damning emails blaming the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson for giving priority to staff working for Kabul animal charity Nowzad, founded by former Royal Marines commando Pen Farthing.

She has agreed to speak out anonymously and sent Newsnight two emails with the subject heading ‘Pen Farthing & dogs’ which allegedly showed the department and special representative Nigel Casey had sought guidance from No. 10 over whether to evacuate workers for Nowzad ahead of others, including interpreters who had worked with the British Army.

But her cover was blown when a well-respected member of the Newsnight team tweeted uncropped screenshots of the emails on January 27, 2022 and in doing so unwittingly revealed the photos to have come from the inbox of a ‘J Stewart’.

The embarrassing blunder came two years after the programme’s now infamous interview with Prince Andrew over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which was trumpeted in hit Netflix film Scoop starring Billie Piper, Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell.

Ms Stewart was suspended and later sacked by the FCDO but is now claiming unfair dismissal on the grounds that her whistleblowing was protected under the Employment Rights Act 1996.

In evidence submitted to the Central London Tribunal Centre, Ms Stewart was said to be ‘horrified’ by the chaos and confusion at the Whitehall crisis centre where she had volunteered to work when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021.

She believed ‘the government’s mismanagement of the crisis caused huge amounts of avoidable suffering in Afghanistan and that it had probably cost lives’ and so agreed to speak to the BBC anonymously about these failings.

Ms Stewart leaked the emails to contradict Johnson’s claims that he had been involved in the decision to evacuate Nowzad staff and animals as ‘complete nonsense’.

She claims the decision came from the Prime Minister and knowledge of this was discussed in the Crisis Centre by senior civil servants and contained in numerous emails she was copied in on, including one from Casey stating that the National Security Adviser would ‘seek input from Number 10.’

Britain’s evacuation of ex-pats and personnel from Afghanistan as the Taliban clawed their way back to power was marked by a terrorist attack on August 26, 2021 as thousands tried to flee to safety at Kabul Airport.

Islamic State offshoot ISIS-K bombed the perimeter where desperate crowds had gathered. Two British men and a teenage child of a UK national were killed alongside 169 Afghans and 13 US troops.

Farthing said that members of his animal charity had been caught up in the blasts only to be turned away due to a change in paperwork rules.

He had been trying to evacuate some 200 dogs and cats rescued from the country – dubbed Operation Ark- but lambasted the government, accusing officials of inaction.

Many staff members and rescue animals were later re-homed in the UK but the decision sparked fury and accusations that his public spat with the Government had meant they were prioritised over others, including those who had worked with the British authorities and were at risk of being executed by the Taliban.

According to her witness statement, Ms Stewart felt ‘morally compelled’ to speak to the media about the withdrawal from Afghanistan because of the Government’s ‘dishonest account’ of what happened.

She said that although she knew she was unauthorised to speak to the media she felt she had been put in an impossible position and said: ‘Doing so [speaking to the media] was less wrong than my alternatives,’

Her lawyers argued that Stewart was acting in the public interest and felt ‘morally compelled to speak out’ submitting that: ‘[Stewart] had viewed numerous emails which appeared to confirm the PM’s involvement in the Nowzad decision and it was impossible to reconcile those emails with the PM’s public denial of any involvement.’

The tribunal between Ms Stewart and the FCDO will decide the extent of the rights of civil servants to make public interest disclosures to the press.

Lawyers for the department had previously challenged the admissibility of some of Ms Stewart’s evidence on the grounds that including parts of her witness testimony would breach principles of parliamentary privilege.

In November, the employment tribunal decided to allow some of the whistleblower’s contested evidence, but redacted some elements.

An FCDO spokesperson said: ‘The 2021 Afghanistan response was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country – and we are proud of our staff who worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people within a fortnight.

‘We have learned lessons from the evacuation and have seen the benefits of this work in our response to the Sudan and Niger evacuations, as well as in our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

‘We have continued to provide assistance to those in Afghanistan, including bringing thousands more people to safety. We cannot comment further while legal proceedings are ongoing.’suci

The tribunal will continue until May 20.