A BOOK which was on sale on the internet for over a year and a half from Victoria Bookshop in Bere Alston has been taken away by the police — because they said contained classified information.

Peter Churcher from the book shop said he received a call last week from someone enquiring about 'The United Kingdom Approach to Amphibious Operations', which has been available on the net since September 2008 at £30.

He was told he could not sell it because it was a current classified document and it was in contravention of the Official Secrets Act to sell it.

The caller, who Mr Churcher believes was from the Government, asked him where he had got the book from but he said he did not know.

'I don't keep a note of who I get the books from,' he said. 'Sometimes they are from auctions or brought in with lots of other books from relatives of people that have died. A young lad I had working here put it on the net for me but it is not a book I had taken any interest in until I got the call on Monday.

'Inside the front cover it says classified but it is not unusual for us to get material with restricted or classified on it. This was all about ships and stuff and how to land your boat and launch attacks on the enemy.'

A few hours after the call, a policeman came to pick up the book.

The majority of Victoria Bookshop's business is done on the internet with 70,000 books currently for sale.

'All I can say is that the world's spies are not very good because the book has been there on the net for a long time,' said Mr Churcher. 'It made for quite an interesting day. Nothing like this has ever happened to us and I don't suppose it will again.'