I left top secret files on the train – you can recover from the biggest mistake of your life

Warning: This story contains a reference to suicide

It was an ordinary Tuesday train ride to work when top civil servant Richard Jackson made the biggest mistake of his life. By the time he realised, with a sudden jolt of panic, it was too late.

He had left highly classified documents on the train.

The split-second error became national news and Jackson’s life was thrown into turmoil. He was consumed by shame and humiliation.

Nearly 20 years on, he recounts that fateful day and the aftermath to BBC Radio 4’s Life Changing podcast. He says he is proof that even when you’ve made your worst mistake you can rebuild your life.

Before his life unravelled, Jackson was 37 and living in Yateley in Hampshire with wife Maddie and stepdaughter Charlotte, 15. His other stepdaughter Becky, 20, was at university.

“We were very happy,” he says. “But I was very focused on my career.

“My worth and my value came from that career, job title, position and responsibility.

“I found myself working 100-hour weeks for a while,” he says. “I didn’t switch off.”

He had been seconded from the Ministry of Defence to the Cabinet Office for a job in global terrorism, handling first-hand intelligence from GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.

Leaving his Whitehall office one Monday evening, he swept up a pile of forms to fill in to make his secondment official.

Back at home, he realised that buried within the bundle were “two papers on two classified subjects, and they were both top secret”.