Privy Council Review of intercept as evidence: report - Official ...

103. Although there would be less of a direct impact for other departments
and agencies such as SIS, Defence Intelligence and FCO, any diversion of
GCHQ or Security Service capability would adversely affect them and the
Government Departments which task them, by reducing the effort available to
meet their requirements. They would be particularly concerned if the limited
number of transcribers and monitors of obscure languages were diverted from
supporting critical overseas CT, foreign policy, counter-espionage, force
protection or counter-kidnapping operations.
104. If for whatever reason new resources were not made available, or if the
required extra staff could not be found, the inevitable consequence would be
a reduction in the agencies’ capability. The Association of Chief Police
Officers predicts that an evidential regime would result in a dramatic reduction
in capacity, which would impact significantly on the potential for interceding in
‘loss of life’ situations such as kidnaps and threats to kill. It believes that the
damage, particularly in counter-terrorism, would not be compensated by the
limited benefits of being able to adduce intercept as evidence. The
Metropolitan Police, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland and
the Police Service for Northern Ireland make similar points.
THE CRIMINAL PROCESS
105. Intercept as evidence will clearly have some significant resource
effects on the criminal justice system:
The availability of intercept evidence may sometimes obviate the need
for other, more costly, investigative techniques such as surveillance.
The weight of intercept evidence may persuade some defendants to
plead guilty, so saving much of the cost of a trial.
On the other hand some trials may need to take account of more
evidence, and so will take longer to prepare for and will run for longer.
106. It is however very hard to predict how effects that will increase costs to
the criminal justice system (apart from the increased costs to the intercepting
agencies covered in the previous section) will be balanced against those that
will save costs. The Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales
has told the Review that savings will in his view at least balance any
increases in this area. Other witnesses believe that the greater body of
evidence provided by intercept product would normally increase the length
and cost of trials. The likely resource impact on the criminal process could
only be confidently assessed by running scenarios of actual cases based
upon a detailed understanding of a specific legal regime.
Chapter V
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