So what happened to the Texan guy? Was this the outcome of some legal construction shifting all blame to the absentee, a legal construction that was entirely well-meant because on paper they'd have treat him like some cold war area spy but didn't find that appropriate wrt the documents in question? With nobody expecting that construction to affect the absentee like it eventually did?

Imagine some US citizen had bought "can't leave the country" documents about some British military things via a London middle-man (very hypothetical because I'd assume secrecy to work very differently in the UK). Would one expect the UK to skip that middle-man wrt consequences?