After the Falklands war a British civil servant was put on trial in the UK for leaking information to the press about the sinking of the Belgrano, the Argentinian war ship by British forces. It had been given out by the governmnet that the Belgrano was imperiling British ships, whereas it appears that the Argentinian war ship was in fact sailing away from the exclusion zone at the time. The civil servant, Clive Ponting, was put on trial for an offence against the official secrets act. At the end of the trial the judge directed the jury to find Ponting guilty. In fact, the jury chose to ignore the advice and find him innocent.

It’s a nice story of an anti-establishment verdict being given by a random group pf twelve individuals seeing through a self-serving establishment. It was nice to read about this the other day.

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