Section 18: Offence of wrongful disclosure
87.Section 18 makes unauthorised disclosure of personal customs information a criminal offence carrying a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
88.Subsection (1) makes it an offence for any person to contravene the non-disclosure provisions of sections 15(1) or (2) or 17(1) by disclosing personal customs information.
89.Subsection (2) provides certain defences for a person charged with the offence of wrongful disclosure. In particular, a person will not be guilty of the offence if they prove that they reasonably believed that the disclosure was lawful. Similarly, a person would not be guilty if they proved that they reasonably believed that the information had already and lawfully been made available to the public; it would be no defence as regards subsequent disclosure to say that the information had been disclosed previously, unless the person making the disclosure could also establish reasonable belief that that earlier disclosure had been lawful.
90.Subsection (3) provides that prosecutions for the offence may be instituted in England and Wales with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecutions, and in Northern Ireland only with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland. No comparable provision is needed in Scotland, because the Procurator Fiscal and the Crown Office automatically have exclusive cognisance of summary and indictable offences in Scotland, under the law relating to Scotland, without the need for specific enabling provision.
91.Subsection (4) provides that the prosecution of the subsection (1) offence is without prejudice to other remedies for unlawful disclosure contrary to the section 15 duty of confidentiality, for example the seeking of an injunction to restrain an unlawful disclosure.
92.Subsection (5) lays down the penalties for those found guilty of the offence under subsection (1). The offence is triable either way, that is either:
summarily, where the maximum penalty will be 12 months’ imprisonment (in England and Wales) or six months’ imprisonment (in Northern Ireland), or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (currently £5,000), or both; or
on indictment, when the maximum penalty will be two years’ imprisonment, or an unlimited fine, or both.
Provision is also made for penalties in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
93.Subsection (6) provides that in relation to an offence under section 18 committed before the commencement of section 282 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the reference in subsection (5)(b)(i) to 12 months has effect as if it were a reference to six months.
