Office for Security and
Tel: 020 7035 4848
Counter-Terrorism
Fax: 020 7035 4745
2 Marsham Street, London
www.homeoffice.gov.uk
SW1P 4DF
xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.x.xxx.xxx.xx
Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk
Mr Sean Moran
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Our Reference: 30884
Date: 19 March 2014
Dear Mr Moran,
Thank you for your e-mail to the Home Office of 26 February 2014 (sent at 13:13), in which
you ask the Home Office eight points relating to Operation ORE. Your request has been
handled as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office
does not hold the information which you have requested.
The cases generated by Operation ORE were initiated as a consequence of nationally
coordinated disseminations to local UK police forces where the decision to proceed to
investigation was a matter for the relevant Chief Constable. Prosecutions arising out of
Operation ORE were dealt with by a number of UK police forces and Crown Prosecution
Service areas and information on Operational ORE was not collated centrally on a routine
basis.
You have also asked about a D Notice that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair
apparently issued. Let me assure you that no such ‘D Notice’ exists or would ever have
been issued.
The only person ever authorised to give a ‘D Notice’ - or more properly Defence Advisory
(DA) Notice - advice has been the Secretary of the Defence Press and Broadcasting
Advisory Committee (DPBAC). He is accountable solely to that Committee, which is the
independent joint Government/ media body that oversees the DA Notice System. The
DPBAC has members drawn from every part of the UK media. The system it oversees is a
purely voluntary compact between Government and the national media. It offers advice
only, and that advice can be accepted or rejected, in whole or in part by the media, and is
not supported by any form of sanction, legal or otherwise.
The DA Notice System is designed solely to avoid the inadvertent public disclosure of core
national security information. The boundaries of the system are defined in the five standing
DA Notices, which can be found in full on
www.dnotice.org.uk. Details on Committee
membership can also be found. As can be seen from these Notices and the associated
explanations, the system explicitly excludes advice on any issues which fall outside those
guidelines, including criminal activities, scandal, corruption or embarrassment. If any
advice was ever offered on those subjects, it would immediately be challenged and
rejected by the DPBAC Media members and indeed by the media as a whole. Please be
assured that no ‘D Notice’ advice aimed at shielding senior figures involved in criminal
activities was, would or could ever have been issued, let alone complied with.
If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review
of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to the address
below, quoting reference
30884. If you ask for an internal review, it would be helpful if you
could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.
Information Access Team
Home Office
Ground Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
e-mail
: xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx
As part of any internal review the Department's handling of your information request will be
reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you
remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you would have a right of complaint to the
Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
Yours sincerely,
J Fanshaw