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Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His career is notable because he believed he had been subject 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, although Tomlinson disputed this reasoning. In 1997, Tomlinson was imprisoned under the Official Secrets Act 1989 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 aid 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, although that claim was dismissed at their inquest in 2007. MI6 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.〔The Sunday Times (London) 31 May 2009 Edition 1 MI6 woos home renegade ex-spy, p7〕 Since 2000, staff at MI6 have been allowed employment tribunals, and have been able to unionise since 2008.〔(Investigatory Powers Tribunal – SIS (MI6) )〕〔(MI6 stealth subs cost us all a fortune | Mail Online )〕 ==Early life== Richard John Charles Tomlinson was born in Hamilton, New Zealand, and raised in the nearby town of Ngaruawahia.〔 He was the middle child in a family of three brothers.〔 His father came from a Lancashire farming family and he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture, and had met his wife whilst studying agriculture at Newcastle University.〔Tomlinson, Richard, ''The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security.'' Foreword by Nick Fielding. Mainstream Publishing 2001 ISBN 1-903813-01-8〕 The family moved to Cumbria, England in 1968. The young Tomlinson won a scholarship for the independent Barnard Castle School in County Durham, where he was a contemporary of Rory Underwood and Rob Andrew, who went on to become England rugby internationals. He excelled at mathematics and physics, and won a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1981.〔 His fellow student, historian Andrew Roberts, remembers Tomlinson as "a bright and charming undergraduate, popular with the boys for his drinking and sporting prowess, and with the girls for his dark good looks." His friends included Gideon Rachman, who wrote him a reference after his tutor refused to do so. Tomlinson completed flying training with Cambridge University Air Squadron and won a Half Blue for Modern Pentathlon. He graduated from the University of Cambridge's Gonville and Caius college with a starred First Class honours degree in aeronautical engineering in 1984, and was approached by MI6 shortly afterwards, whose offer he turned down.〔 Following his graduation he took examinations to join the Royal Navy as a Fleet Air Arm Officer, but he failed the medical examination due to childhood asthma.〔 Instead he applied for and was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship, which allowed him to study technology policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with full funding during 1986-7.〔 Following this, he was awarded a prize from the Rotary Foundation, allowing him to study in the country of his choice for a year. Consequently, he enrolled in a political science course at the University of Buenos Aires, where he became a fluent Spanish speaker.〔 He continued to pursue his aeronautical interests and qualified as a glider pilot with the Fuerza Aérea Argentina. From 1988-9 Tomlinson worked in Mayfair, London, for management consultancy company Booz Allen Hamilton.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Richard Tomlinson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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