The Investigations

As Sir John Sawers was preparing to take up his appointment as Chief of MI6 — head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service — an investigation identified a serious operational security lapse. His wife had created an unsecured Facebook account containing photographs, details of the family's holidays, their home address and personal connections.

For the incoming head of one of the world's most powerful intelligence agencies, the exposure of such personal detail represented a significant vulnerability. The investigation identified and published the breach.

US intelligence had labelled Ahmed Errachidi "The General" — an Al Qaeda commander who, they alleged, had attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in the months before the September 11 attacks. He had been held at Guantanamo Bay for four years, much of it in solitary confinement.

Employment records obtained during the investigation told a different story. At the precise time Errachidi was alleged to have been training as an assassin near Kandahar, he had been working as a chef at the five-star Westbury Hotel in Mayfair, London. Fellow kitchen staff confirmed his presence. The evidence was unambiguous.

The investigation was published in a series of articles that documented not only the false intelligence but Errachidi's treatment during his detention, including graphic first-hand accounts of conditions at Guantanamo.

An investigation revealed that a gem-encrusted model boat worth £12 million — given to Diana, Princess of Wales, as a wedding gift — had been stolen from Kensington Palace following her death in Paris in 1997.

The investigation identified the theft and established the circumstances in which the item had gone missing from the Royal household, raising serious questions about the security and accounting of the Princess's estate and personal effects in the period immediately after her death.

Over a number of years, a series of investigations examined the financial dealings and associations of Prince Andrew, Duke of York. These included a detailed examination of the £15 million sale of his marital home and questions about the transaction that attracted the attention of financial regulators, as well as his relationships with controversial overseas figures and their implications for his role as the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment.

The investigations tracked a pattern of financial arrangements and personal connections that raised persistent questions about the judgement and conduct of a senior member of the Royal Family in a publicly funded role.

Following three months of investigations in London, Moscow and Washington — including clandestine meetings with senior Soviet intelligence veterans in parks, hotels and a bathhouse — classified files from Soviet archives were obtained and examined.

The investigation revealed that the KGB and GRU had successfully placed an agent inside the Royal household as butler to Princess Margaret, and that a second network of agents — including a well-known author and his wife — had been passing intimate details of Royal family life to Moscow throughout the Cold War. The butler, codenamed "Rab", had previously served at the American Embassy in London, where he had access to correspondence and conversations involving President Eisenhower, Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan.