When considering Barry’s legal liability for sharing the information regarding the Apache attack helicopters, the most appropriate interpretation may be the literal rule. The literal rule is used to apply the obvious, ordinary, natural meaning of the statute and was used in London Railway Co V Berriman 1946. Under Section 1(3) of the Official Secrets Act 1989, Barry would be guilty for forwarding sensitive and confidential information from the database to his private email account regardless of whether or not the contents of the email were named in the subject. This Section states that it relates to ‘damaging disclosure of any information… which is or has been in his possession’. Whilst Barry did not deliberately intend for his girlfriend Linda
