Fired whistleblower ‘stupid and naive’ for sharing emails with journalist

A sacked Foreign Office whistleblower told an employment tribunal she had been ‘stupid and naive’ to share internal emails with a journalist, but said: ‘I don’t think I did the wrong thing thing “.

Josie Stewart shared emails with a BBC journalist which allegedly showed senior department officials sought advice from Number 10 on whether to prioritize the evacuation of staff from animal charity Nowzad during the fall of Kabul in 2021, the court in central London heard. Wednesday.

Ms Stewart, a former Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) civil servant, was fired after the journalist accidentally revealed her name when posting the emails on social media in January 2022.

She now alleges unfair dismissal for making a protected disclosure under whistleblower laws.

The 2021 Nowzad flight sparked controversy as the animals were airlifted safely out of Afghanistan while thousands of people trying to flee the Taliban in Kabul were left behind.

During the evacuation, Ms Stewart worked as part of the special cases team where people potentially eligible to come to the UK were assessed on an individual basis.

In her witness statement, she said she was “disgusted” that then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson had “stepped in and reversed the policy” allowing the charity’s animals and staff to be evacuated , a claim Mr Johnson had publicly called “completely absurd”.

At the time Ms Stewart shared the emails, media outlets questioned whether the government had prioritized animals over people during the evacuation.

However, she told the court she did not believe that was what happened.

She said she shared the emails with the BBC journalist because she believed they showed a different story, that Number 10 had intervened in the decision to evacuate staff from the association.

“I didn’t think it was a story,” she said.

“I didn’t think that’s what happened.

“It was obvious to me what the story was, that the prime minister had made the decision.”

She added: “It was absolutely obvious that the Prime Minister’s lie was the important part of the story here. »

She said she was stupid not to redact the email when she said so.

“I accept that I was stupid and naive to have shared the information with the journalist because I failed to fully redact it myself and that led to the situation we find ourselves in all today,” she said.

“I don’t think I did a bad thing.”

She said she did not consider herself a whistleblower when she shared the emails.

“I didn’t consider myself a whistleblower,” she said.

“I know now that no one does it until they have time to understand what happened to them.”

Nowzad was created by former Royal Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing, who launched a high-profile campaign to get his personnel and animals out of Kabul as the Taliban swept through Afghanistan.

Despite alleged intervention from Number 10, Nowzad staff ultimately fled Afghanistan to Pakistan rather than flying from Kabul, but the charity’s animals were able to leave on a charter flight with Mr Farthing.