Royal Navy sailor under investigation after ‘secrets’ from nuclear submarine found on his phone

The 36-year-old served as a steward on a Vanguard-class nuclear-armed submarine, a ship that provides Britain’s nuclear deterrent and is armed with Trident-2-D5 missiles.

Sources told The Sun that police at the HMNB Clyde nuclear submarine base in Faslane, Scotland, found the documents when they seized Gauntlett’s Huawei mobile phone as part of a separate investigation.

The papers allegedly contained secret information about the submarine’s movements.

For fear of espionage, sailors are prohibited from taking mobile phones on submarines.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “We can confirm that an investigation is underway into a member of the armed forces.”

It is assumed that investigators have ruled out espionage, the publication says.

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Last month, a former Royal Marine awarded the George Cross was arrested in Dubai and accused of espionage “after using illegal technology to gain access to a public facility,” according to United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities.

Croucher, from Solihull, had worked in nearby Saudi Arabia and Qatar before stopping off in Dubai on his way home to the UK, but authorities took him in for a six-hour interrogation before charging him with espionage.

Dubai’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) interrogated the 40-year-old for six hours on suspicion of “intentional and illegal access to a telecommunications network” and questioned him about his links to British intelligence and the Ministry of Defense before his arrest.

He was held for four days in an Emirati prison, where he ate “a primitive meal of rice and chicken twice a day in very unhygienic conditions,” according to a close friend who spoke to The Times.