England rugby star Amy Cokayne rapped by RAF chiefs for sharing selfie showing sensitive military document
ENGLAND rugby star Amy Cokayne got a yellow card from RAF chiefs for sharing a selfie that revealed a sensitive military document.
The Harlequins hooker is part of the Ministry of Defence’s elite athletes programme and spends most of her time in rugger kit.
But she still attends a handful of sessions with the Royal Air Force Police where she is on the payroll as a Flying Officer.
Amy, 25, posed with a puppy in her full RAF uniform without noticing the classified papers about threats to the base were pinned to a noticeboard behind her.
The picture she posted on Twitter was pulled down as soon as she realised and the RAF insisted it “has not posed a security issue”.
But commanders said they gave her a rap across the knuckles. A spokesperson said: “The individuals involved in this image have been reminded of their responsibilities.”
Amy’s father, Ian, was an RAF squadron leader and her brother, Thomas, served as a lance corporal in 4 Rifles regiment.
She joined the RAF after losing the rugby World Cup final in 2017 to give herself a second career.
Speaking before the selfie blunder, she said: “It is really good to have something else in my life.”
She was put on a pro contract by the Rugby Football Union in 2019 and released from her RAF duties to represent her country.
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She added: “I could get an injury today and that would be my rugby career over but I now know I have that life balance.”
Amy’s clanger follows a series of military blunders this year.
Senior civil servant Angus Lapsley left sensitive MoD documents at a bus stop in Kent in June.
They included details of a Royal Navy warship’s passage through Crimea’s disputed territorial waters and plans for a possible UK military presence in Afghanistan after the US-led Nato operation ended.
A member of the public who discovered the pile of almost 50 documents handed them to the BBC.
The Foreign Office said: “The individual concerned has been removed from sensitive work and has already had their security clearance suspended pending a review.”
Hapless MoD officials were last month accused of putting Afghan interpreters’ lives at risk after two data breaches within a few days.
The first breach led to the email addresses of more than 250 Afghan interpreters, who worked for British forces, being shared mistakenly.
Officials later sent an email with the email addresses and some names of 55 people, which could be seen by all the recipients.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace apologised for the first breach calling it “an unacceptable level of service”.