RIPA and IOCA

[Richard D G Cox]

"Q G Campbell" <Q.G.Campbell@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
> IANAL but I do not think that I misread IOCA s.9(1) as wrongly as that.

I can confirm that this section has had some interesting side-effects;
one intention seemed to me to prevent anyone putting forward the argument
that a judge's discretion should be exercised to exclude evidence because
it had (or might have) been obtained by an illegal interception: however
the equality-of-arms provisions in HRA mean that if one side is precluded
from calling evidence to establish a point, the other party is equally
precluded from calling evidence in support of the converse.

A case in which I was advising last year was dropped rather hurriedly by
the Crown as a result of this particular line of argument!

Richard