Attorney General V Blake House of Lords

Attorney General v Blake, [2001] 1 A.C. 268 (2000)
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product of the wrongful act and the benefit has been
gained at what is broadly to be described as the victim's
expense. It would be morally obnoxious that, where
a profit has been obtained as a result of criminally
inflicting harm, it is the criminal rather than the victim
who should enjoy the profits.
A condition for awarding restitutionary damages is
the existence of a causal relationship between the
profits and the criminal act: but for the criminal act
the profits would not have accrued. The criminal act
should 
*275
have caused harm to an identifiable
victim. Those conditions are met in the present case.
The argument for restitution is particularly strong in
the present case because it is the Crown which is the
claimant. The duty not to commit criminal wrongs is
owed first and foremost to the state and not to the
individual.
The fact that Parliament has legislated for the granting
of confiscation orders which strip a person of the
profits of his crime does not militate against the
existence of a jurisdiction to make a restitutionary
order in favour of the victim.
Clayton
replied.
Their Lordships took time for consideration. 27 July.
LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD.
My Lords, George Blake is a notorious, self-confessed
traitor. He was employed as a member of the security
and intelligence services for 17 years, from 1944 to
1961. In 1951 he became an agent for the Soviet
Union. From then until 1960 he disclosed valuable
secret information and documents gained through his
employment. On 3 May 1961 he pleaded guilty to
five charges of unlawfully communicating information
contrary to section 1(1)(c) of the Official Secrets Act
1911 . He was sentenced to 42 years' imprisonment.
This sentence reflected the extreme gravity of the harm
brought about by his betrayal of secret information.
In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison
and fled to Berlin and then to Moscow. He is still
there, a fugitive from justice. In 1989 he wrote
his autobiography. Certain parts of the book related
to his activities as a secret intelligence officer. By
1989 the information in the book was no longer
confidential, nor was its disclosure damaging to the
public interest. On 4 May 1989 Blake entered into
a publishing contract with Jonathan Cape Ltd. He
granted Jonathan Cape an exclusive right to publish the
book in this country in return for royalties. Jonathan
Cape agreed to pay him advances against royalties:
£50,000 on signing the contract, a further £50,000 on
delivery of the manuscript, and another £50,000 on
publication. Plainly, had Blake not been an infamous
spy who had also dramatically escaped from prison, his
autobiography would not have commanded payments
of this order.
The book, entitled 
No Other Choice
, was published
on 17 September 1990. Neither the security and
intelligence services nor any other branch of the
Government were aware of the book until its
publication was announced. Blake had not sought any
prior authorisation from the Crown to disclose any
of the information in the book relating to the Secret
Intelligence Service. Jonathan Cape has, apparently,
already paid Blake about £60,000 under the publishing
agreement. In practice that money is irrecoverable. A
further substantial amount, in the region of £90,000,
remains payable. These proceedings concern this
unpaid money.