(01-07-2011 21:28 )Captain Vimes Wrote: let's not forget that the Guardian and the Independent have their own agendas and can be economical with the truth when it suits them.
Indeed, I've never forgiven The Guardian for what they did to Sara Tisdale. For those too young to remember, she was a young clerk working at the MoD, and she leaked documents to The Guardian proving that Michael Hestletine had lied to the House of Commons about the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles in the UK. The government demanded the return of the documents which could be traced back to the leaker and The Guardian's then editor Peter Preston meekly complied.
Tisdale was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act and jailed for six months. There was uproar at the sentence, with jurors publicly saying that they would never have convicted if they'd thought that she'd go to jail, as although she'd technically broken the law she was a whistle-blower and this had been a political prosecution brought to cover the Government's embarrassment.
Of all people to lead the pro-Tisdale campaign, it was the then editor of the NOTW, Derek Jameson, who once sued (and lost) after a magazine described him as "an east-end lad made bad". He put an editorial on the front page saying that he would go to jail before he'd ever reveal his sources.
Peter Preston said later that he bitterly regretted his actions, but the real upshot of the Tisdale case was when Clive Ponting, a Senior MoD official, leaked top-level documents about the sinking of The Belgrano in the Faulklands War. Now this really was a case for the OSA and Ponting fully expected to go to jail, but the jury, remembering Tisdale, acquitted him on all charges!
The message had been sent that juries would no longer convict in such cases and that was the last time they tried.