Clive Ponting

Ponting supplied an MP with Ministry of Defence documents about the sinking of the General Belgrano, challenging the government's public account. A jury acquitted him under the Official Secrets Act in 1985 despite his admission that he had disclosed the material. He had not been authorised to release it, and the acquittal was not a general judicial declaration that civil servants could decide for themselves what to disclose. The case exposed the tension between official confidentiality, parliamentary scrutiny and an employee's claimed public duty.