Who was the high flying civil servant of the MOD tried and acquitted of passing Top Secret documents to Labour MP Tam Dayell?
"Clive Ponting Clive Sheridan Ponting (born 13 April 1946) is a former senior civil servant, best known for leaking documents about the sinking of the ARA ""General Belgrano"" in the Falklands War. He is the author of a number of revisionist books on British and world history. While a senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), Ponting sent two documents, subsequently nicknamed ""the crown jewels"", to Labour MP Tam Dalyell in July 1984 concerning the sinking of an Argentine navy warship ""General Belgrano"", a key incident in the Falklands War of 1982. After Ponting admitted revealing the information,"
"by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). This resulted in the release of the file on the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO incident in Suffolk, the MoD’s report by the Flying Saucer Working Party used to brief Winston Churchill and, in 2006, the DIS report ""UAPs in the UK Air Defence Region"" (also known as the Condign report). Between 2008 and 2013 Clarke acted as the media consultant and spokesperson for the Open Government project that oversaw the transfer of 210 public records on UFOs from the Ministry of Defence to The National Archives. The project resulted in the public release of"
"letters to the Swedish Government, requesting Coleman's extradition request to Sweden. Tam Dalyell, a Labour Party Member of Parliament from Linlithgow, asked the Lord Advocate, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, to grant diplomatic immunity to Lester Coleman so he could give evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial in Scotland. Allan Stewart, a former Office Minister of Scotland and a Conservative Party MP for Eastwood, also said that Coleman should be granted immunity so he could testify in Scotland. The Lord Advocate rejected Dalyell's plea, saying that the Home Office and the English courts have the jurisdiction over the demand of the"
"of female clothing and obscene literature. He was investigated by police but released without charge after being given a warning not to send obscene material through the post. In November 1980, ""Private Eye"" magazine revealed this event. In 1981, using parliamentary privilege, MP Geoffrey Dickens asked why Hayman had not been prosecuted, with Dickens saying: ""How did such a potential blackmail risk come to hold highly sensitive posts at the MOD and NATO?"" He also asked the Leader of the House of Commons to ""investigate the security implications of diaries found in the diplomat's London flat which contained accounts of"
"civil servant and inadvertently discovers stolen top secret documents. Despite being a notorious and infamous criminal, he is enough of a patriot to send the documents anonymously to MI5 so that they might locate the traitor. In Moscow, British defector Kim Philby drafts a memorandum for the Soviet General Secretary stating that, should the Labour Party win the next general election in the United Kingdom (scheduled for sometime in the subsequent eighteen months), the ""hard left"" of the party will oust the moderate populist Neil Kinnock in favour of a radical new leader who will adopt a true Marxist-Leninist manifesto,"
"Sarah Tisdall Sarah Caroline Tisdall (born 1960 in Plymouth) is a former Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) clerical officer who was jailed for leaking British government documents to a newspaper in 1983. Tisdall anonymously sent ""The Guardian"" photocopied documents detailing when American cruise missile nuclear weapons would be arriving in Britain. The documents set out the political tactics Michael Heseltine, then defence minister, would use to present the matter in the House of Commons. There did not appear to be any threat to national security in the revelation but the Government nonetheless brought a legal action against ""The Guardian"", seeking"
"Sarah Tisdall Sarah Caroline Tisdall (born 1960 in Plymouth) is a former Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) clerical officer who was jailed for leaking British government documents to a newspaper in 1983. Tisdall anonymously sent ""The Guardian"" photocopied documents detailing when American cruise missile nuclear weapons would be arriving in Britain. The documents set out the political tactics Michael Heseltine, then defence minister, would use to present the matter in the House of Commons. There did not appear to be any threat to national security in the revelation but the Government nonetheless brought a legal action against ""The Guardian"", seeking"
"the files have low levels of classification and none are classified Top Secret. 200 files are set to be made public by 2012. The files are correspondence from the public sent to the British government and officials, such as the MoD and Margaret Thatcher. The MoD released the files under the Freedom of Information Act due to requests from researchers. These files include, but are not limited to, UFOs over Liverpool and the Waterloo Bridge in London. On October 20, 2008, more UFO files were released. One case released detailed that in 1991 an Alitalia passenger aircraft was approaching London"
"of their duties. Home Office minutes suggest they did not think this kind of informal punishment of jurors who had returned the ""wrong"" verdict was unheard of. In 1982, during the Falklands War, the British Royal Navy sank an Argentine cruiser, the ARA ""General Belgrano"". Three years later a civil servant (government employee) named Clive Ponting leaked two government documents concerning the sinking of the cruiser to a Member of Parliament (Tam Dalyell) and was subsequently charged with breaching section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The prosecution in the case demanded that the jury convict Ponting as he"
"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"
"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"
"revealed personal files were held by MI5 on Harman and on the (by then former-) General Secretary of the NCCL, Patricia Hewitt. They successfully argued that there had been an infringement of their rights because MI5 was not a legally constituted and democratically accountable organisation, this being the minimum standard in democracy. The success of the case led to enactment of the Security Service Act 1989. Harry Lamborn, the Labour MP for Peckham, died on 21 August 1982. In the subsequent by-election held on 28 October 1982, Harman was elected to succeed Lamborn with 11,349 votes (50.34%), a majority of"
"and he has also raised issues about Lord Birt and his role as Tony Blair's adviser. After compiling figures in 2002 which revealed that the government's fleet of ministerial cars had grown to its largest ever size, he began in January 2005 to campaign to force disclosure of the details of MPs' expenses under the Freedom of Information Act, finally succeeding in February 2007. His success enabled ""The Daily Telegraph"" to publish details of his own expense claims, which included £3,000 for ""office rental"". In October 2001 he won a test case in the High Court, when the National Security"
"David Shayler David Shayler (; born 24 December 1965) is a former British MI5 officer. Shayler was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act 1989 for passing secret documents to ""The Mail on Sunday"" in August 1997 that alleged that MI5 was paranoid about socialists, and that it had previously investigated Labour Party ministers Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Harriet Harman. Shayler was born in Middlesbrough, England; when he was 10 his family left the northeast. He attended John Hampden Grammar School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire whose head teacher, according to Shayler himself, once described him as ""a born rebel who"
"Tom Driberg Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell (22 May 1905 – 12 August 1976) was a British journalist, politician, High Anglican churchman and possible Soviet spy, who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1942-55, and again from 1959-74. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for more than twenty years, he was first elected to parliament as an Independent, and joined the Labour Party in 1945. He never held any ministerial office, but rose to senior positions within the Labour Party and was a popular and influential figure in left-wing politics for many years. The"
"machine led to Tisdall. In March 1984, Tisdall pleaded guilty to a charge under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. She was sentenced to six months in jail, but was released after four months. The legality of the Order (compelling ""The Guardian"" to surrender the documents, and thus reveal their source) was upheld in a decision of the House of Lords (""Secretary of State for Defence v. Guardian Newspapers Ltd."" [1985] AC 339) by a majority of three against two. As of 2005, Tisdall worked for an ethical property company developing accommodation for charitable organizations and community groups."
"going to sack Winston Churchill? That is the issue."" However the Labour candidate won the seat with a majority of 3,431. Noel Whiteside Borras Noel Hamilton Whiteside (12 December 1903 – 13 June 1948) was a British company director and politician, who served a single term as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP). He was noted for his interest in aviation, being a private pilot and frequently raising the issue of air defence in Parliament. During the Second World War he was a senior civil servant; at the end he fought again for a seat in Parliament but was unsuccessful."
"David Mundell David Gordon Mundell, (born 27 May 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician and solicitor. He was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland in May 2015, the first openly gay Conservative to hold a ministerial position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale in Scotland since 2005. He was elected as MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale in 2005 and was promoted to Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland from 2005 to 2010 and Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 2010 to 2015. He has"
"satisfactory explanation why he was still at liberty: thirdly that he had been seen in conversation with a liveried man-servant of General Byng, the army officer responsible for internal security in the North of England, the man-servant later saying that on a previous occasion he had driven Oliver from Byng's house to Wakefield to catch a coach. The Mercury made no charge against Byng, but asked who were the employers of 'this double-distilled traitor' and called upon local magistrates to investigate. ""On the 16th the exposure of Oliver in the Leeds Mercury was read in both houses of parliament, by"
"be placed in the public domain that will make it clear that Mr Megrahi had nothing to do with the bombing of Pan Am 103."" Tam Dalyell, the former Labour MP for West Lothian, has long believed Megrahi was the victim of a catastrophic miscarriage of justice, and has publicly stated that Megrahi is merely a scapegoat. Dalyell was supported by Nelson Mandela, the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church, the law faculties of the Scottish universities, the representatives of British relatives and the UN's official observer at the trial in The Hague. According to the ""Mail On Sunday"", confidential"
"Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney-General. Devlin was unseated in the 1997 general election, losing to Labour's Dari Taylor. He tried to regain the seat in 2001, but was beaten by Taylor again. Tim Devlin, while a Tory MP, helped arrange a meeting on 28 January 1993 in which Customs was ordered to drop drug-smuggling charges against Middlesbrough drug trafficker Brian Charrington. The case was dropped when it emerged that Charrington was a paid informant for HM Customs officers. All the accused, including Charrington and Curtis Warren, were acquitted of all charges. Devlin was called to the bar in 1985,"
"cover-up reportedly led to him being released within hours, the evidence destroyed and the investigating officers prevented from discussing the matter under the Official Secrets Act. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, called for immunity for whistle-blowers in the case. Reports also emerged of Smith's arrest by Northamptonshire Police, where he was again released in mysterious circumstances. In 2015, a retired police officer said that he was threatened with the Official Secrets Act after he found Smith in the home of a known sex offender, with two drunk teenage boys, and a police sergeant in civilian clothes. The retired officer said"
"minister Damian Green, allegedly because Green told the press that the government had given licenses to illegal workers, that an illegal worker was employed in the Houses of Parliament, and two more documents. The complaint was dismissed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), after MP's concluded ""that growing frustration in both the Home Office and the Cabinet Office may have led officials to give an exaggerated impression of the damage done by the leaks that could reasonably be presumed to have emanated from the Home Office"" . Illegitimate and unauthorised attempts have allegedly been made to exploit Sir David Normington's"
"High Court ruling, and the details were made public on 23 May 2008. In January 2009, the Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, tabled a motion to exempt MPs' expenses from being disclosed under a Freedom of Information request. Labour MPs were placed under a three line whip to force the motion through the Commons. However, opposition parties stated they would vote against the proposals, and large scale public opposition emerged. The proposals were ultimately dropped on 21 January 2009. The Commons authorities announced that full disclosure of all MPs' expenses would be published on 1 July 2009,"
"Lord Advocate by Elish Angiolini, First Minister Jack McConnell was questioned by the Metropolitan Police about his nomination of Boyd for a peerage. McConnell said he was ""disappointed"" over what he regarded as a ""normal and straightforward nomination"" becoming caught up in Scotland Yard's cash for peerages investigation. Lord Boyd of Duncansby's role as Lord Advocate featured leading the prosecution in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial between May 2000 and January 2001. Of the two defendants, one – Fhimah – was acquitted and the other – Megrahi – was convicted on 31 January 2001 of 270 counts of"
"John Vassall William John Christopher Vassall (20 September 1924 – 18 November 1996) was a British civil servant who spied for the Soviet Union, allegedly under pressure of blackmail, from 1954 until his arrest in 1962. Although operating only at a junior level, he was able to provide details of naval technology which were crucial to the modernising of the Soviet Navy. He was sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment, and was released in 1972 after ten. The Vassall scandal greatly embarrassed the Macmillan government, but was soon eclipsed by the more dramatic Profumo affair. Born in 1924 and known throughout"
"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"
"Bell stood in Hamilton's Cheshire constituency of Tatton as an independent candidate on an ""anti-corruption"" platform. Bell easily defeated Hamilton with the assistance of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, who both withdrew their candidates and supplied party workers to help Bell's campaign. Sir Gordon Downey published his 900-page report in early July 1997, clearing Ian Greer, Neil Hamilton, and Tim Smith of ""The Guardian""'s original allegations that Ian Greer had paid the two MPs to table questions. However, Downey decreed that the three Fayed employees' testimony that they had processed cash payments to Hamilton amounted to ""compelling evidence"","
"magazine ""Private Eye"", to be Sir Peter Hayman. In 1981, Geoffrey Dickens, MP, asked the Attorney-General ""if he will prosecute Sir Peter Hayman under the Post Office Acts for sending and receiving pornographic material through the Royal Mail"", questioning how ""such a potential blackmail risk come to hold highly sensitive posts at the MOD and NATO?"" He also asked the Leader of the House of Commons to ""investigate the security implications of diaries found in the diplomat's London flat which contained accounts of sexual exploits"". The Attorney-General, Sir Michael Havers, replied, ""I am in agreement with the Director of Public"
"on Todd's role in drawing up unique contracts that allowed some staff to get enormous payoffs when they left the force. Tony Lloyd, a former Labour Foreign Office minister who has just been elected Police Commissioner for the force, is to be handed a report into allegations of possible financial malpractice, including 'golden goodbye' redundancy packages of up to £300,000. He was married with three children, a daughter and twin boys. His social interests included Warhammer (Space Marines), computer gaming and reading, particularly military and political biographies. After Todd was reported missing by Greater Manchester Police, rescue teams from Llanberis,"
"the House of Lords, in the case ""R v Hancock"". Hancock and Shankland were released on 30 November 1989, which was coincidentally the fifth anniversary of Wilkie's death. Kim Howells, the South Wales NUM official who commented on the killing of David Wilkie, later became a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party and served as a minister in the Blair government and later became chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a committee of parliamentarians that oversees the work of Britain's intelligence and security agencies. In 2004 he said that when he heard that a taxi driver had been"
"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."
"the British House of Commons in 2007 which failed to become law. Conservative MP David Maclean introduced the bill to ensure that MPs' correspondence was exempt from freedom of information laws. The then leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell, said there should not ""be one law for MPs and a different law for everyone else"" and that the Bill might make it appear as though ""Parliament has something to hide"". However, this failed to pass the first reading in the House of Lords. Further to this, Lord Falconer made comments suggesting that time spent deciding whether or not"