Espionage: Convictions

Question

Espionage offences dealt with under the National Security Act 2023 received royal ascent in July 2023, and are therefore not yet available in the source data.

Convictions relating to espionage offences prior to the act (under the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1989), up to June 2023, will have been prosecuted under a range of offences, many of which are available in the Outcomes by Offence data tool: June 2023.

They can be accessed by navigating to the ‘Prosecutions and convictions’ tab and using the HO Offence Code filter to select the below offences:

• 06629 - Unauthorised use of uniforms; falsification of reports, forgery, personation, and false documents. Interfering with officers of the police or members of His Majesty’s forces. Duty of giving information as to commission of offences.
• 06630 - Committing an act prejudicial to the safety or the interest of the State
• 06631 - Knowingly harbouring spy
• 06632 - Serving or former member of Security or intelligence Services disclosing information relating to security or intelligence. Person notified as subject to security or intelligence provisions unlawfully disclosing secret
• 06633 - Former or current Crown Servant or Government Contractor making damaging disclosure relating to security or intelligence
• 06634 - Former or current Crown Servant or Government Contractor making damaging disclosure relating to defence matter
• 06635 - Former or current Crown Servant or Government Contractor making damaging disclosure of confidential matter from Foreign State or relating to international relations
• 06636 - Former or current Crown Servant or Government Contractor disclosing information resulting in commission of offence, facilitating escape from custody, facilitating act prejudicial to safekeeping of person in custody, impeding prevention or detection of offence or apprehension or prosecution of suspected offender etc.
• 06637 - Making damaging disclosure of protected information
• 06689 - Making damaging disclosure of information entrusted to other State or organisation.
• 06695 - Disclosing information which can be used to gain access to protected information

In addition to these, HO code 195/99 contains offences under s8 Official Secrets Act, which are not able to be disaggregated through published products. Bespoke analysis concluded that there was 1 person prosecuted for offences under this legislation between years ending June 2019 and 2023. There may be other prosecutions related to espionage that are prosecuted under other legislation but it is not possible to identify those from the data.