Having no further legal recourse to appeal against his dismissal, Tomlinson left the United Kingdom, and pursued his arguments against MI6 by publishing articles in the international press protesting his treatment, whilst working on a book detailing his career in the Service.

There was a traffic-monitoring camera above the underpass in the Place de l'Alma itself but this was under the control of la Compagnie de Circulation Urbaine de Paris (Paris Urban Traffic Unit). The draft, dating from 1996, referred to the memo and contained none of the detail about a staged car crash with flashlights in a tunnel. Mr Tomlinson was arrested in Paris earlier in August at the request of the UK Government after being freed from jail, but he was later released after it was decided he was not a threat to security. Tomlinson then attempted to aid Mohamed al-Fayed in his privately funded investigation into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and al-Fayed's son Dodi.

He was subsequently cleared entirely of any involvements in the lists, though was never compensated for the damage to his career caused by the allegations.

French investigators had narrowed it down from the original 4,000 registered (along with Andanson's) as having the Bianco Corfu 224 paint scheme and manufactured from 1983 to September 1987. Since 2000, staff at MI6 have been allowed employment tribunals, and have been able to unionise since 2008. Tomlinson removed the references to Mandela in the British edition of the book, conceding that Mandela was probably unaware that the officials whom he spoke to were affiliated with MI6. The book, named The Big Breach, was published in Moscow in 2001 (and later in Edinburgh), and was subsequently serialised by The Sunday Times.

Al-Fayed further alleged that the Fiat Uno was owned by a French photojournalist named Jean-Paul James Andanson, [74] a security services agent according to Al-Fayed, [27] who had photographed Diana while she was at his villa in St. A Russian military analyst who Tomlinson said he tried to recruit as an MI6 spy confirmed the existence of Truefax to The Guardian yesterday, disclosing that he had done some work for the phony news agency.