Who was Clive Ponting accused of leaking information to during his 1985 secrets trial?
"executive from 1983 to 1987. He was knighted in the 1981 New Year Honours, ""[f]or political and public service"". In 1984, he was forwarded information received by Tam Dalyell relating to the sinking of the ""General Belgrano"" in the Falklands War, which showed that the full facts had not been released to the public. Kershaw sent the information to the Ministry of Defence, which identified the leak as originating with Clive Ponting, who was tried (but acquitted) for an offence under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. Kershaw joined the National Committee for Electoral Reform in 1976, and"
"the Ministry of Defence suspended Ponting without pay. On 17 August 1985, he was charged with a criminal offence under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act of 1911. The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, had his pay reinstated once she had been briefed on what had happened. Ponting's defence at the trial was that the matter and its disclosure to a Member of Parliament was in the public interest. This was the first case under the Official Secrets Act that involved giving information to Parliament. Although Ponting expected to be imprisoned, he was acquitted by the jury. The acquittal came"
"the customary knighthood the following month. In 1982 he became a member of the Parole Board for England and Wales, and the same year joined the Crown Court Rule Committee. In 1985 he judged the case of Clive Ponting, a British civil servant who had been charged with violating section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 after leaking documents about the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano. Ponting's defence (that his actions were in the interests of the state, as they prevented Parliament from being misled) was rejected by McCowan, who summed up in favour of the prosecution, ""the"
"and within the security services who feel ill-will towards Wallace for exposing their activities. The question is that if MI5 was prepared to kill to get even with Wallace, why not kill him? It may be that Wallace's allegations about MI5 officers being involved in activities verging on the treasonable were widely known - so if any harm came to him the finger would point directly at them. I have tried repeatedly in the House to get an adjournment on the conviction and will continue to do so."" In 1987, a former senior Ministry of Defence official, Clive Ponting, was"
"permanent under secretary, MOD: Sir Frank Cooper. From 1982-1986, he was private secretary to a succession of Secretaries of State for Defence - John Nott, Michael Heseltine and the late George Younger. He was Heseltine's Private Secretary at the time of his resignation in 1986 over the Westland affair. In 1985, as private secretary to Michael Heseltine, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, he was a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Clive Ponting, who was later acquitted of an offence under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 for passing information to Labour"
"despite the judge's direction to the jury that Ponting's official duty was not to disclose the information, and that ""the public interest is what the government of the day says it is"". The judge, Sir Anthony McCowan, ""had indicated that the jury should convict him."" The verdict has been treated as an instance of jury nullification. Ponting resigned from the civil service on 16 February 1985. Shortly after his resignation, ""The Observer"" began to serialize Ponting's book ""The Right to Know: the inside story of the Belgrano affair"". The Conservative government reacted by amending UK secrets legislation, introducing the Official"
"January 1985 (Richard Mottram, Heseltine's Private Secretary, gave evidence on behalf of the Ministry of Defence). To general surprise Ponting was acquitted. A week later Heseltine launched a stinging seventy-minute attack on Ponting in the House of Commons, and a year later he walked out of a Channel 4 News studio on being told that a recorded interview with Ponting was also to be shown. Stanley was seen as the villain of the piece, whereas Heseltine had merely declined to correct false statements made by others. Geoffrey Howe (Foreign Secretary) spoke highly of Heseltine's contribution to NATO and WEU conferences."
"there might be a scandal comparable to Watergate, asked Clive Ponting, a civil servant who had played an important role in Derek Rayner's efficiency reforms, to draw up a detailed report into the sinking of the ""Belgrano"". At the end of March 1984 Ponting attended a series of meetings with Heseltine. He and the Permanent Under-Secretary Clive Whitmore wanted to disclose further information to reveal that the ""Belgrano"" had been spotted a day earlier than had previously been admitted. John Stanley, thought to be Thatcher's eyes and ears in the Ministry of Defence, initially opposed it, but Thatcher was persuaded"
"there is no reason to keep secret, other than devotion to the cult of secrecy for its own sake"". The media dubbed 1985 """". U.S. Navy civilian Jonathan Pollard was charged with , for selling classified information to Israel. His 1986 plea bargain did not get him out of a life sentence, after a 'victim impact statement' including a statement by Caspar Weinberger. Larry Wu-Tai Chin, at CIA, was charged with for selling info to China. Ronald Pelton was dinged for , , & , for selling out to the Soviets, and ruining Operation Ivy Bells. Edward Lee Howard was"
"particularly similar to the legal proceedings that surrounded the posthumous publication of the memoirs of Labour minister Richard Crossman in 1974. The theme of a civil servant leaking information which contradicts the version given by ministers (the unnamed official at the Energy department) and the desire of the civil servant for a ""clear conscience"" (Bernard Woolley) is similar to the case of Clive Ponting. Ponting was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act 1911 for leaking information which indicated that when the British sank the Argentine cruiser ""General Belgrano"" during the Falklands War she was sailing out of the exclusion zone."
"Secrets Act 1989. Before the trial, a jury could take the view that if an action could be seen to be in the public interest, that might justify the right of the individual to take that action. As a result of the 1989 modification, that defence was removed. After this enactment, it was taken that '""public interest"" is what the government of the day says it is.' Ponting was educated at Bristol Grammar School and University of Reading. Following his resignation from the Civil Service, Ponting served as a reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the"
"for Richard Nixon, H. R. Haldeman, also concluded that Fielding was Deep Throat. That speculation ended after former top Federal Bureau of Investigation official W. Mark Felt announced in May 2005 that he was the mysterious Watergate informant, as later confirmed by Woodward, Bernstein and Executive Editor Ben Bradlee in a statement released through ""The Washington Post"". He was the Counsel to the President for President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1986. Fielding served on the Tribunal on the U.S.-UK Air Treaty Dispute (1989–1994), George H.W. Bush's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform (1989) and Secretary of Transportation Rodney E."
"notables through couriers and ciphered correspondence. Two of them, William Spence alias Butler, and Abraham Holmes, were arrested in June 1683. News of the plot leaked when Josiah Keeling gave information on it to Sir Leoline Jenkins; and the plot was publicly discovered 12 June 1683. Keeling had contacted a courtier, who put him in touch with George Legge, 1st Baron Dartmouth, and Dartmouth had brought him to Jenkins, Secretary of State. Keeling's testimony was used at the trials of Walcott, Hone, Sidney, and Charles Bateman; and it earned him a pardon. It also started a lengthy process of incriminated"
"unrelated to the scandal. Though Hashemi made a full video confession to numerous serious charges, some observers find the coincidence of his leak and the subsequent prosecution highly suspicious. Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on 16 March 1988. North, indicted on 16 counts, was found guilty by a jury of three felony counts. The convictions were vacated on appeal on the grounds that North's Fifth Amendment rights may have been violated by the indirect use of his testimony to Congress, which had been given under a grant of immunity. In 1990, Poindexter was convicted on"
"lives"" and that it is a ""little parliament"". The second metaphor emphasises that, just as members of parliament are generally dominated by government but can occasionally assert their independence, juries are usually dominated by judges but can, in extraordinary circumstances, throw off this control. Devlin thereby sought to emphasise that neither jury equity nor judicial control is set in stone. Perhaps the best example of modern-day jury equity in England and Wales was the acquittal of Clive Ponting, on a charge of revealing secret information, under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 in 1985. Mr. Ponting's defense was"
"be released into the public domain."" Today, more recent leaks have surpassed that amount. On July 30, 2013, Chelsea Manning was convicted for theft of the cables and violations of the Espionage Act, in a court martial proceeding, and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment. She was released on May 17, 2017, after 7 years total confinement, after her sentence had been commuted by President Obama earlier that year. The first document, the so-called Reykjavik 13 cable, was released by WikiLeaks on 18 February 2010, and was followed by the release of State Department profiles of Icelandic politicians a month later."
"retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in ""The New York Times"" in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. In late August 2006 it became known that Richard L. Armitage was responsible for the leak. The investigation led to felony charges being filed against Lewis ""Scooter"" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Eventually, Libby was"
"anonymous note claiming that the letter had been written according to the advice of John Stanley, but contrary to the advice of civil servants, and suggesting other potential lines of inquiry. Three months later he sent two documents exposing the alleged cover up. Heseltine strongly supported, and by some accounts pushed for, the prosecution of Ponting (Ministry of Defence police had advised against, but the Solicitor-General Sir Patrick Mayhew urged that he should be). Heseltine later claimed that Thatcher had not been involved in the decision to prosecute. Neither Heseltine nor Stanley were called as witnesses at Ponting's trial in"
"and had previously urged the Australian Board of Control to object to the tactic. Fingleton's brother supported the claim that Bradman was responsible, repeating in 1997 the alleged view of Corbett that Bradman provided the information. In 1995, Bradman was interviewed for television, and when asked about the source of the leak, responded sharply: ""It wasn't me!"" In the same year, a biography of Bradman, written with his close co-operation, by Roland Perry, said that Bradman had confronted Corbett to ask who leaked the story, to be told it was Fingleton. O'Reilly believed that Bradman, with whom he did not"
"the CPS in 2014. The CPS ""unaccountably advised the Swedes in 2010 or 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff."" The CPS data destruction was disclosed in a freedom of information case pursued by Italian investigative journalist Stephania Maurizi. Maurizi took her case against the CPS to an information tribunal in London on 13 and 14 November 2017. These individuals have served as the Director of Public Prosecutions since the CPS was established in 1986: Crown Prosecution Service The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public"
"an ex-Peace Corps and ex-CIA agent charged with for allegedly dealing with the Soviets. The FBI's website says the 1980s was the ""decade of the spy"", with dozens of arrests. Seymour Hersh wrote an article entitled ""The Traitor"" arguing against Pollard's release. Samuel Loring Morison was a government security analyst who worked on the side for ""Jane's"", a British military and defense publisher. He was arrested on October 1, 1984, though investigators never demonstrated any intent to provide information to a hostile intelligence service. Morison told investigators that he sent classified satellite photographs to ""Jane's"" because the ""public should be"
"no more than two years’ probation plus a fine given one day earlier to David Petraeus for the misdemeanor of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, Sterling's lawyers submitted a plea that Sterling ""not receive a different form of justice"" than Petraeus, asking for a similarly lenient sentence instead of the 19 to 24 years imprisonment sought by the federal prosecutors. On May 11, 2015, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sentenced Sterling to 3½ years in prison. Judge Brinkema said there was ""no more critical secret"" than revealing the identity of a man working with the CIA, and that"
"""by sources"" as leaking Valerie Plame's role as a CIA operative in a ""casual conversation"" with Robert Novak. On September 6, 2006, ""The New York Times"" noted that in 2003, early in his investigation, Fitzgerald knew Armitage was the primary source of the leak. The ""Times"" raised questions as to why the investigation proceeded as long as it did. New York Times According to lawyers close to Libby, ""the information about Mr. Armitage's role may help Mr. Libby convince a jury that his actions were relatively inconsequential"". Fitzgerald never issued a statement about Armitage's involvement. The trial began on January"
"July 1984. Martin stated that while Wright exaggerated the certainty with which they regarded Hollis's guilt, Wright was justified in saying that Hollis was the most likely candidate, for the reasons Wright had cited. In her 2001 autobiography, Christine Keeler (John Profumo's mistress), alleged, without supporting evidence, that Hollis and Stephen Ward were part of a spy ring with Sir Anthony Blunt. Ward committed suicide on 3 August 1963 as the Profumo scandal progressed. In his book, """", a Cambridge professor, Dr Christopher Andrew, used access to 400,000 MI5 files to compile an official history of the service. He claims"
"his payment agreement and provided information any time it became available to him, not only when he was scheduled to receive compensation or care. At some point in 1985, Tolkachev was compromised. While attempting to meet with Tolkachev, a CIA officer was arrested and questioned at the Lubyanka KGB headquarters and prison, and incriminating materials, including spy equipment such as cameras, were seized from him. The source of the exposure is believed to have been Edward Lee Howard, an ex-CIA officer who fled to Moscow to avoid treason charges. Aldrich Ames apparently also passed his name to the Soviets. Tolkachev"
"classified information to his Soviet contact, ""Michael Green."" He also claimed to have broken with the Party in 1941. Privately, Straight first confessed in 1963 to family friend and fellow cold war liberal Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was then serving as a special assistant to John F. Kennedy. Having been invited to work in the White House and concerned about undergoing a background check, Straight confided to Schlesinger who sent him to the Department of Justice, which helped trigger an investigation that resulted in Anthony Blunt's exposure. With Straight's previous activities remaining undisclosed, he maintained good standing in Washington, and"
"immunity by the Attorney General, in exchange for revealing everything he knew. Peter Wright, one of Blunt's interrogators, describes in his book ""Spycatcher"" how Blunt was evasive and only made admissions grudgingly, when confronted with the undeniable. By 1979, Blunt was publicly accused of being a Soviet agent by investigative journalist Andrew Boyle, in his book ""Climate of Treason"". In November 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher admitted to the House of Commons that Blunt had confessed to being a Soviet spy fifteen years previously. The term ""Five"" began to be used in 1961, when KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn named Maclean"
"Anthony McCowan Sir Anthony James Denys McCowan (12 January 1928 – 3 July 2003) was a British barrister and judge of the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal best known for trying the case of Clive Ponting in 1985. After studying at Epsom College he won a scholarship to study history at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he switched to law, and he was called to the Bar in 1951. After gaining a strong practice in criminal, property and personal injury law he was made a Queen's Counsel in 1972, and was appointed a judge of the Queen's Bench"
"Long Silence,"" Straight confessed his involvement in the Cambridge spy ring, seeking to both explain and exonerate himself by contending that he was recruited reluctantly, and never passed classified information to his Soviet contact, ""Michael Green."" He also claimed to have broken with the Party in 1941. Privately, Straight first confessed in 1963 to family friend and fellow cold war liberal Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was then serving as a special assistant to John F. Kennedy. Having been invited to work in the White House and concerned about undergoing a background check, Straight confided to Schlesinger who sent him to"
"its kind. Less than five years later, the CPGB's national organiser, Dave Springhall was also found guilty of spying for the Soviets and received seven years' imprisonment. But unlike the Woolwich spyring, which MI5 broke through diligent tradecraft, the discovery of Springhall's espionage has been described as more luck than judgement. Ultimately, says Richard Thurlow, little is actually known of both the Glading Case in particular and Soviet spy rings of the period more generally for the simple reason that ""so few files have been released."" By the time of his arrest, Glading had been responsible for the recruitment of"
"Debategate Debategate or briefing-gate was a political scandal affecting the administration of Ronald Reagan; it took place in the final days of the 1980 presidential election. Reagan's team had somehow acquired President Jimmy Carter's briefing papers, classified top secret, that Carter used in preparation for the October 28, 1980, debate with Reagan. The briefing papers were never specified to be vital strategy memos or just routine position papers. This leak of campaign papers was not divulged to the public until late June 1983, after Laurence Barrett published ""Gambling With History: Reagan in the White House"", an in-depth account of the"
"to prominence. Indeed, the information passed by Gordievsky became the first proof of how worried the Soviet leadership had become about the possibility of a NATO nuclear first strike. Gordievsky was suddenly ordered back to Moscow on 22 May 1985, taken to a KGB safe house outside Moscow, drugged and interrogated by Soviet counterintelligence. Apparently, the leak came from two sources, one of which might have been Aldrich Ames, an American Central Intelligence Agency officer who had been selling secrets to the KGB. Gordievsky was questioned for about five hours. After that, he was released and told that he would"
"a position he held until ill-health forced him to resign in 1995. He resigned from the Bench two years later, and died on 3 July 2003. Anthony McCowan Sir Anthony James Denys McCowan (12 January 1928 – 3 July 2003) was a British barrister and judge of the High Court of Justice and Court of Appeal best known for trying the case of Clive Ponting in 1985. After studying at Epsom College he won a scholarship to study history at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he switched to law, and he was called to the Bar in 1951. After gaining a"