Maxine pub farce

Astonishing details of how the secrets of Maxine Carr's new life were lost by a partying civil servant were revealed today.

Key documents giving the addresses of "safe houses" in the North-East, where Soham killer Ian Huntley's girlfriend was to be kept, were stolen from the official's car while she celebrated a friend's birthday at a north London gastropub.

The woman made a frantic 999 call and was forced to tell police the explosive contents of the briefcase, prompting a massive response to an otherwise routine crime.

The senior official had the secret documents, seen by only a small number of colleagues, because she was on "24-hour call-out", the Home Office said.

But the secrets were taken by a thief who broke into her Ford Fiesta at about 3.30pm.

The civil servant spent more than two hours at The Wells near Hampstead Heath at a lunch with female friends, choosing from a menu which included chilled pea soup with parma ham, bluefin tuna ni篩se and chocolate tart with malt beer ice cream.

Today the Home Office said the briefcase was locked in the car boot, and was not in plain view.

It also insisted Carr's security had not been compromised - but admitted it had had to use "contingency plans" for her safety.

Carr, 27, will be formally freed from prison tomorrow and is today at a police station after being sneaked out of Foston Hall prison, where she spent the last days of her sentence for giving Huntley a false alibi which delayed the investigation into the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

Today Carr is meeting members of the team who will oversee her new life. The mixed unit of probation officers and police is known as a multi-agency public protection arrangement. They will work on details of her new identity, which Carr had only recently been persuaded to accept.

It is believed they will still use the name they had planned, but it is possible Carr will decide to keep her own name.

Home Secretary David Blunkett faces a series of embarrassing questions from Tories and Liberal Democrats on what the top-secret file was doing in a civil servant's car miles from the Home Office days before Carr's release.

The document would normally be kept under lock and key at the Home Office in Queen Anne's Gate, where only a handful of civil servants were allowed to know the details of Carr's new life.

It was considered so important not to compromise the addresses where Carr would live that some of Mr Blunkett's "inner circle", including his advisers and heads of Home Office departments, were not allowed to see it.

When the civil servant alerted police to the theft, she also had to tell Martin Narey, head of the prisons and probation services. Mr Blunkett was also informed.

Today Mr Narey said: "It is disappointing that we lost some documents, but I don't think it is a dreadful business." The papers have now been recovered.

There was anger among probation officers and police who were supposed to keep Carr safe from the vigilante attacks they fear. Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: "This will undermine public confidence."