Telephone Intercept as Evidence
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300603 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
TheJournal of
Criminal
Law
the laboratory as they find it. Here, there was evidence that they had
endeavoured to hasten the process (which they had had to accept).
There was, however, one
matter
which might indicate
that
the
police
could have acted with perhaps agreater sense of urgency.
When
the
police officer in charge was told that the result of the analysis should
not
be expected before January, it does
not
appear that he informed the
laboratory that the custody time limit expired a
month
or more earlier.
And on the. form which accompanies the material lodged with the
laboratory there is no statement of the expiry date of the custody time
limit. The court did not think that this omission sufficed to base a finding
that the police had
not
shown all due diligence. But the court stated that,
for the future, the police should seek to expedite
the
production of the
results of the analysis of the material lodged with the laboratory by
amending the form, so that it stated the expiry date
under
the custody
time limits rules.
Telephone Intercept as Evidence
Morgans vDPP [1999] 1 WLR 968
The defendant was suspected by British Telecommunications pic
and
by
the police of hacking, by operating
two
processes whereby he hoped to
reduce his telephone bills.
It
was alleged that, in order to do so, he used
a public telecommunication system to gain unauthorised access to the
computer systems of certain companies.
It
was said
that
by so doing he
was able to make his telephone calls at
the
expense of the companies
and, secondly, that, by engaging in a 'trawl' through the 'freephone', he
was himself
then
able to dial
out
free of charge. The stipendiary magis-
trate convicted him of (1) obtaining unauthorised access to a computer
system contrary to s 1(1) of
the
Computer Misuse Act 1990,
and
(2) the
fraudulent misuse of a telecommunication system, contrary to s 42 of
the Telecommunication Act 1984. An appeal from these convictions was
taken to the Crown Court, on
the
ground that
the
evidence on which
the prosecution relied was inadmissible. The police,
who
had
no
warrant
from
the
Secretary of State
under
s 2 of the Interception of Communica-
tions Act 1985, had arranged for a call logger to be placed on the
defendant's telephone line, so that they
had
evidence of
the
defendant's
calls (and of their destination
and
duration). By a comparison with the
evidence obtained by
the
companies which the defendant had targeted,
which evidence was by way of printouts from their telecommunication
networks, the police obtained ademonstration of the use which the
defendant was able to make of those networks for
the
purpose of
avoiding payments for his
own
calls through those networks.
an offence intentionally to intercept acommunication in
the
course of
its transmission by means of a public telecommunications system, with
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