Following on from Julien Burcher: it seems clear the indictment should have been dropped (obviating the need for Ms Gun to enter a plea), but why was it issued in the first place. Was it a case of shoot first, and think afterwards? If so, an indictment of the government itself.
She was indicted because, working for an intelligence agency, she photocopied and smuggled out of GCHQ a classified document which she then had handed to a journalist. She admitted all this in a police interview. Her conduct was obviously an offence under s1 of the official Secrets Act, and that’s why she was charged.
As DPP McDonald was of the opinion that he was under a duty to disclose evidence (other than the AG’s advice) to the defence yet he allowed Ms Gun to enter a plea to the charge she faced without the benefit of the required disclosure. This is all one needs to know about the type of DPP McDonald was & the woeful inability of our system to protect defendants from disclosure failures. When will we ever see the end to the plague of our *disclosure scandals*?
The plea she had already entered was not guilty and by offering no evidence on 25 March 2004, the prosecution accepted that plea. So she was acquitted.
From the moment it became the opinion of the DPP that the defence were entitled to disclosure which couldn’t be made (on national security grounds) the DPP was under a duty to withdraw the Indictment. Ms Gun shouldn’t have been asked for her plea in court at all…to allow her to give any plea should trouble any right thinking person who understands the reason that there is duty of disclosure.
You don’t ask a defendant for a plea once you know you won’t disclose something that may help their defence or undermine the prosecution case… that’s pretty basic Ken - yet you put Ms Gun in that position… hang your head in shame.
Julien, Ken can speak for himself. But as I understood his remarks, the initial plea was made at a time when the CPS intended to go ahead and there was no significant delay in dropping the case once it became clear that it would be unfair to proceed. Are you suggesting otherwise?
The first plea would have been made at the magistrates court after initial, and we now know, incomplete disclosure. Subsequently (we don’t know when) Ken formed an opinion that he was under a duty to disclose evidence that may assist the defence or undermine the prosecution case. Ken also decided (perhaps at a different time?) that he wasn’t able to make the required disclosure. At the moment Ken made the decision that he wouldn’t make the necessary disclosure he was obliged to ensure that Ms Gun didn’t have to appear before any court where decisions could be made because she, her legal advisers & the court were partially/wholly *in the dark*. To make Ms Gun surrender to the dock officers & make a plea from the dock of a court against an indictment that should have been withdrawn days, weeks or months earlier should be a huge embarrassment to Ken - sadly he seems to revels in his senseless cruelty - shame on him.
He and I have tried to explain the position to you without success. I think your comment is entirely unjustified and that you should withdraw it forthwith.
That’s correct. As soon as we realised that the material potentially helpful to the defence could not be disclosed to her, we had the case listed at the Old Bailey and offered no evidence against her. I’m afraid, Julien, you misunderstand what happened.
If you notified her defence team that you had made an application for the listing of the case at the Old Bailey because you were unable to disclose material that you were obliged to & the hearing was for you to offer no evidence in the case then I withdraw my previous remarks & apologies wholeheartedly.
Where to start? I suppose by saying that I readily accept what Lord Macdonald tells us. In no way does that mean that I am going soft on the machinations of the Westminster government of the day in seemingly being prepared to act in whichever unprincipled manner in order to try to manipulate those six nations into coming “onside”. I continue to call what later transpired the illegal invasion of Iraq. The lack of preparedness and coherent plans following upon a “successful” invasion is of yet another order of magnitude in - at the very least- unwisdom and we continue to reap that whirlwind. The impression must remain with so many of us that the reaction to the Gun revelations had at least as much to do with executive embarrassment as any considerations of the national interest. I swallow hard and then I add this -scarcely original but still important- thought: whatever the life changing consequences for Katherine Gun might well have been, was she occupying the high moral ground with her (very likely) unlawful disclosure? Another hard swallow and then I answer that question in the affirmative. As to Lord Goldsmith’s eventual (truncated?) advice to Cabinet, I find it hard to speak or write politely about that.
Following on from Julien Burcher: it seems clear the indictment should have been dropped (obviating the need for Ms Gun to enter a plea), but why was it issued in the first place. Was it a case of shoot first, and think afterwards? If so, an indictment of the government itself.
She was indicted because, working for an intelligence agency, she photocopied and smuggled out of GCHQ a classified document which she then had handed to a journalist. She admitted all this in a police interview. Her conduct was obviously an offence under s1 of the official Secrets Act, and that’s why she was charged.
As DPP McDonald was of the opinion that he was under a duty to disclose evidence (other than the AG’s advice) to the defence yet he allowed Ms Gun to enter a plea to the charge she faced without the benefit of the required disclosure. This is all one needs to know about the type of DPP McDonald was & the woeful inability of our system to protect defendants from disclosure failures. When will we ever see the end to the plague of our *disclosure scandals*?
The plea she had already entered was not guilty and by offering no evidence on 25 March 2004, the prosecution accepted that plea. So she was acquitted.
I meant 25 February!
Thanks, Ken.
Are you saying she entered a plea before the hearing on 25 February 2004 — when she must have pleaded "not guilty" if she was asked to plead?
From the moment it became the opinion of the DPP that the defence were entitled to disclosure which couldn’t be made (on national security grounds) the DPP was under a duty to withdraw the Indictment. Ms Gun shouldn’t have been asked for her plea in court at all…to allow her to give any plea should trouble any right thinking person who understands the reason that there is duty of disclosure.
You don’t ask a defendant for a plea once you know you won’t disclose something that may help their defence or undermine the prosecution case… that’s pretty basic Ken - yet you put Ms Gun in that position… hang your head in shame.
Julien, Ken can speak for himself. But as I understood his remarks, the initial plea was made at a time when the CPS intended to go ahead and there was no significant delay in dropping the case once it became clear that it would be unfair to proceed. Are you suggesting otherwise?
The first plea would have been made at the magistrates court after initial, and we now know, incomplete disclosure. Subsequently (we don’t know when) Ken formed an opinion that he was under a duty to disclose evidence that may assist the defence or undermine the prosecution case. Ken also decided (perhaps at a different time?) that he wasn’t able to make the required disclosure. At the moment Ken made the decision that he wouldn’t make the necessary disclosure he was obliged to ensure that Ms Gun didn’t have to appear before any court where decisions could be made because she, her legal advisers & the court were partially/wholly *in the dark*. To make Ms Gun surrender to the dock officers & make a plea from the dock of a court against an indictment that should have been withdrawn days, weeks or months earlier should be a huge embarrassment to Ken - sadly he seems to revels in his senseless cruelty - shame on him.
He and I have tried to explain the position to you without success. I think your comment is entirely unjustified and that you should withdraw it forthwith.
That’s correct. As soon as we realised that the material potentially helpful to the defence could not be disclosed to her, we had the case listed at the Old Bailey and offered no evidence against her. I’m afraid, Julien, you misunderstand what happened.
If you notified her defence team that you had made an application for the listing of the case at the Old Bailey because you were unable to disclose material that you were obliged to & the hearing was for you to offer no evidence in the case then I withdraw my previous remarks & apologies wholeheartedly.
Where to start? I suppose by saying that I readily accept what Lord Macdonald tells us. In no way does that mean that I am going soft on the machinations of the Westminster government of the day in seemingly being prepared to act in whichever unprincipled manner in order to try to manipulate those six nations into coming “onside”. I continue to call what later transpired the illegal invasion of Iraq. The lack of preparedness and coherent plans following upon a “successful” invasion is of yet another order of magnitude in - at the very least- unwisdom and we continue to reap that whirlwind. The impression must remain with so many of us that the reaction to the Gun revelations had at least as much to do with executive embarrassment as any considerations of the national interest. I swallow hard and then I add this -scarcely original but still important- thought: whatever the life changing consequences for Katherine Gun might well have been, was she occupying the high moral ground with her (very likely) unlawful disclosure? Another hard swallow and then I answer that question in the affirmative. As to Lord Goldsmith’s eventual (truncated?) advice to Cabinet, I find it hard to speak or write politely about that.
No one ‘bugs offices’, they just hand over data they had already collected via Echelon under the reciprocal agreement between the NSA and GCHQ