ROB BECKLEY

Rob Beckley

The laptop computer, owned by Rob Beckley, deputy chief constable of Avon and Somerset, was taken from his car outside Marylebone railway station in Central London on Wednesday.

It is believed his police driver was distracted by a thief while another made off with the laptop.

Mr Beckley was not in the vehicle at the time.

Police sources say Mr Beckley, a former member of the terrorism committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers, had insisted on using his own computer when he joined the force last year.

As a result, none of the information accessible from the machine - which includes anti-terror details, private information about individual officers, and details of criminal investigations, suspects and undercover operations - is encrypted.

Details of the theft emerged yesterday as police launched an investigation into how a senior civil servant left a key counter terrorist document on a commuter train from London to Surrey earlier this week.

The file, which should never have left the official's Whitehall office, was discovered by a commuter and handed to the BBC.

Officers are now considering whether the mandarin should face prosecution for breaching the Official Secrets Act.

Yesterday, Mr Beckley said IT experts were working to ensure no one outside the force would be able to use the computer and log on to police servers.

'Broadly speaking, there was no sensitive information on that laptop but, of course, it poses a security risk,' he added.

A police spokesman said the laptop was not targeted, but taken by an opportunist thief.

'We are confident that there has been no breach of the force's network as a result of this theft,' he added.

But he refused to discuss why Mr Beckley had insisted on having his own laptop and why information had not been encrypted.

(Rob Beckley)

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