Katharine Gun

Gun disclosed a GCHQ email concerning surveillance of UN diplomats before the Iraq war, acting outside her authorised duty of confidentiality. Prosecutors offered no evidence in 2004 because they considered they could not disprove the proposed necessity defence. That outcome did not establish a general right to leak or produce a judicial ruling on the legality of the war. Her challenge is included as a contested act of disclosure, with its legal limits made explicit rather than treated as an ordinary exercise of official authority.