An official in the MoD has leaked a list of accidents and many of these have been corroborated by Rob Evans and Andrew Gilligan and published in the Sunday Telegraph.
The MoD are deliberately misleading the public when they claim that there has never been an accident that has resulted in the release of radiation to the environment. The worst nuclear accident in Britain, the Windscale fire of 1957, occurred in part of the weapons programme. The Windscale piles were used solely for the production of plutonium for bombs. We now know that there have also been at least 4 incidents in which radioactive tritium has leaked out of nuclear weapons. There have been other accidents which could have had catastrophic results, such as dropping a torpedo on top of a live nuclear weapons, onboard HMS Tiger, at Malta, in 1974.
"For years the public have been conned about the true price of having nuclear weapons. Some atom bombs have been dropped, others struck by lightning and more have been leaking radioactive gas. These weapons are not just a danger to those they could be used against, they are a menace to those who live next to them."
The following is the latest list of British nuclear weapons accidents:
January 1960 HMS Victorious at sea, core of nuclear weapon overheated
1960/61 RAF Wittering, radioactive ball bearings fall out of weapon and scattered on floor
August 1967 RAF Waddington, Aircraft with nuclear bomb on board struck by lightning
September 1973 RAF Akrotiri, tritium leak from WE-177
2 November 1973 RAF Honington, tritium leak from WE-177
February 1974 HMS Tiger, off Valetta harbour, Malta, hoisting rail collapsed and dropped a torpedo onto a WE-177
March 1974 RAF Akrotiri, tritium leak from WE-177
November 1974 RAF Laarbruch, WE-177 dropped
13 August 1975 RAF Waddington, tritium leak from WE-177
June 1976 RAF Honington, WE-177 fell from work stand and dented
August 1977 Coulport, Polaris missile dropped while being hoisted onto submarine
May 1984 RAF Bruggen, WE-177 fell off trolley, bounced twice and landed upside down, causing internal damage to weapon
July 1988 RAF Marham, WE-177 dented after being dropped by ground crew who failed to line up centre of gravity properly
June 1998 Coulport, lorry carrying missile tube for Trident crashed into a wall