The Police and the Law
| Published date | 01 July 1938 |
| Date | 01 July 1938 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X3801100301 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
VOL.
XI, NO.3
POLICE JOURNAL
JULy-SEPT.,
1938
The
Police and the Law
OFFICIAL SECRETS
Lewis v. Cattle
THE judgment in the case of Lewis v. Cattle has led
to a spate of protests from newspapers as to the
"
menace"
and
"Star
Chamber
methods"
involved.
It
is suggested that
it
is a monstrous perversion to use the
Official Secrets Acts " to cover purely Police information
".
The
National Union of Journalists passed a resolution
condemning the use of the Act against " working journalists
engaged in their normal duties ". Needless to say the " free-
dom of the
press"
and the " ordered liberties inherited from
our forefathers" are also at stake.
What seems to have been forgotten is the fact that the
case was merely another sordid instance in which a journalist
by backstairs methods of one kind or another had obtained
confidential information from a government servant. What
Chief Constables all over the country are anxious to know is
why journalists who do this kind of thing should be protected
when anyone else who did it would be prosecuted without
question.
From
the Chief Constables' point of view it is
elementary that the newspapers should not publish the con-
tents of documents which they know, or have reason to believe,
to be confidential, nor should they publish any information
which is calculated to be of assistance to criminals or which
reveals the lines of investigation being followed by the Police,
or which is bound to embarrass those engaged in the investiga-
tion of a case; or, worst of all, is calculated to interfere in any
way with the course of justice.
The
broad principle involved is the avoidance of publica-
tion of matters contrary to the public interest. When will the
B 257
THE
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