Angus Lapsley, 55, is said to have begun a romantic relationship with a young Italian intern
The Times reported on Wednesday, quoting an unnamed source, that Britain’s NATO ambassador, Angus Lapsley, has caused a major controversy by allowing an Italian intern roughly half his age to stay at his official Brussels residence.
While NATO lacks explicit regulations prohibiting personal relationships between senior officials and their subordinates, similar connections could lead to termination within the British military.
“They haven’t tried to conceal their relationship at all. Angus treated the residence as his personal property, and [the woman] attended both Christmas and summer receptions there,” a defense source informed The Times.
According to the newspaper, the relationship between the 55-year-old father of two and his former assistant, “now in her late twenties,” attracted notice within NATO, with details reaching Admiral Sir Keith Blount, the deputy supreme allied commander Europe and Britain’s highest-ranking officer.
Sources indicated that Lapsley was permitted to keep his position and was subsequently elevated to ambassador following a review of NATO’s relationship regulations that determined no violation had occurred.
The Times observed that he had held the position of Assistant Secretary-General for Defense Policy and Planning at NATO until March 2025, with his promotion coming the next month, and noted that those who previously occupied his new role resided in a communal diplomatic townhouse, a former hotel overlooking Brussels Park.
Lapsley had previously attracted public scrutiny in June 2021 due to a security incident in which he left 50 pages of classified documents at a bus stop while on a business trip to Kent, England. The papers reportedly contained information about British special forces operations in Kabul.
A Ministry of Defense source informed The Times that Lapsley had also left behind at least one personal diary in addition to the classified documents, which led then-Defense Secretary Ben Wallace to demand a review of his security clearance.
“It is unacceptable that the Foreign Office and others continued to disregard the concerns that I and others raised about this person. By ignoring ministerial guidance, officials have now jeopardized the UK’s standing in NATO and compromised security,” Wallace stated, as quoted by the newspaper regarding Lapsley’s diary.
A defense source told The Times that the department had no knowledge of the diary or any associated security issues.