英语论文网

of crimes which are shown to have been committed and where detection and prosecution could sensibly be said to act as a practical deterrent to future criminal conduct of a similar type. I do not, therefore, for my part doubt that a disclosure required to enable persons shown to have been engaged in a criminal activity to be identified and prosecuted is a disclosure required for ‘the prevention of …crime’. At the same time it has to be borne in mind that the protection against disclosure is not lightly to be cast aside and that the conditions required for its removal have to be positively established to the satisfaction of the court. If there is danger that the exception may be deprived of any useful content by too narrow an interpretation of the protection itself being attenuated to an unacceptable degree if the need for positive establishment of those requirements is too lightly regarded. What has chiefly concerned me in the instant appeal is whether this onus has been sufficiently discharged by the evidence filed on behalf of the inspectors. In my judgment, however, it has only narrowly been discharged and I am concerned that it should not be thought that the protection afforded by the Act can be overcome merely by a ritualistic assertion on affidavit that particular information is required for the prevention of crime. Obviously the court will pay a proper regard to the views of things, know better than anyone else the stage which their inquiries have reached and what is needful for their successful prosecution. But it cannot, in my judgment, and must not be thought to be sufficient dimply to say that the inquiry upon which the body is engaged is one which has as its object the detection and prevention of crime and that, because a deponent says that certain information is required for the purpose of the inquiry, it therefore follows inexorably that the information is necessary for ‘the prevention of…crime’. The court must, in my judgment, be presented at least with sufficient material to enable it to exercise an independent judgment on the extent of the need. If the evidence filed on behalf of the inspectors is open to the criticism that it could have been more specific about the results so far of the inquiries undertaken, one can, at the same time, see very good reasons why the inspectors, in an inquiry whose avowed purpose is to identify and report on criminal activity, should not wish to reveal in greater detail than is strictly requisite the course which their inquiries are taking. What the evidence does disclose is, first, that their is a ring of people who have dealt on the Stock Exchange using price-sensitive information derived from at least one servant of the Crown. Secondly, it is demonstrated that the dealing have been on a considerable scale. Thirdly, it is an irresistible inference that the Crown servant or servants responsible for providing the price-sensitive information has or have been acting in breach of a duty of confidence. Fourthly, the inference is well-night irresistible that unless both the source of the information and the persons engaged in the ring can be identified and stopped the course of criminal conduct involved in such dealings is likely to continue. Fifthly, it is beyond dispute that Mr. Warner, without any suggestion of impropriety on his part, is the author of two articles in which unpublished information has been deployed with an accuracy which cannot reasonably be attributed to mere coincide