Special Forces used a top-secret computer system to hide graphic child abuse images belonging to their soldiers.
The sickening material was concealed in a ‘cyber vault’ on a network so highly classified that not even the Royal Military Police had clearance to view it.
Its existence emerged only after it was discovered as part of enquiries into claims that SAS troops executed civilians in Afghanistan in cold blood.
Primarily Sonata – the IT system – was used to store highly classified reports on SAS operations, but a ‘hidden compartment’ inside the server was reserved for indecent images.
Sources said soldiers copied and distributed the disturbing material among themselves for their personal use, before it was intercepted by top brass and transferred on to the server.
Tonight former UK military intelligence commander Philip Ingram said: ‘No service person, whether Special Forces, service police or others should be above the law. It is vital that accusations are investigated diligently and without fear or favour.
‘Police should have identified any material passed around inappropriately. Their failures mean today the truth will be difficult to ascertain and any criminal actions difficult to prove in a court of law.’
High Court documents seen by the Mail refer to the failure of RMP to identify soldiers who copied and distributed the material.
Top brass stand accused of deliberately obstructing their investigation by storing the worst images in a server detectives could not access, the Mail was told.
The RMP were barred from searching Sonata on the grounds its function was to store highly classified operational reports. Crucially, RMP officers are not sufficiently security-cleared to access such files.
They dropped their probe into the child abuse images, finding there was no evidence against any UK soldiers.
The Mail understands they only saw pictures recovered from phones belonging to Afghans, found on electronic devices seized during house searches. Last night the Ministry of Defence said such material ‘was routinely collected from local individuals, where it might be evidence’.
In 2016, Sonata was wiped clean, erasing the operational reports and indecent images.
A Special Forces contractor ran a program on the server designed to permanently erase previously deleted files. At the time the MoD was carrying out a probe – Operation Northmoor – into allegations of unlawful killings by the SAS.
The Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, led by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, is now considering whether Sonata was accidentally scrubbed or deliberately deleted to hamper Northmoor.
Earlier this year some material was recovered and presented to the inquiry, which opened in October 2023 and was only supposed to last a year but will now likely conclude in 2026.
It has heard disturbing accounts of how SAS soldiers ‘murdered’ as many as 80 Afghans in captivity from 2010 to 2013.
A court file said: ‘Disclosure contains alarming documents which point to a wider culture of lawlessness, operational misconduct, failure of leadership and disrespect for basic human dignity with the SAS unit in question.’ It referred to the presence of indecent images of children on the server.
Last night, the MoD said: ‘During the Northmoor investigation material was identified that required a separate investigation. No evidence of any criminal offences by service personnel was found during this investigation.’