In July 1984, British Ministry of Defence official Clive Ponting sent Labour MP Tam Dalyell two classified documents about the 1982 sinking of the Argentine warship ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War. The documents, later nicknamed “the crown jewels,” contradicted government statements about the circumstances of the attack. Ponting was suspended without pay and charged on 17 August 1984 under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered his pay reinstated after being briefed on the case.
Ponting argued that giving the documents to Parliament was in the public interest. A jury acquitted him despite the trial judge directing that it should convict, an outcome described at the time as a “perverse verdict.” After finding the surviving file on Operation Cauldron, secret 1952 biological-warfare trials in which a trawler was accidentally sprayed with plague bacteria off the Hebrides, Ponting also confidentially alerted The Observer; its July 1985 report called the incident a “germ bomb” test. Ponting resigned on 16 February 1985. The Conservative government subsequently amended official-secrets law, and the Official Secrets Act 1989 removed the public-interest defense that had aided his acquittal.
