Part of Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:45 pm on 13 January 2005.
Clause 98 provides for an offence of tipping off, but does not provide for circumstances in which tipping off takes place immediately prior to the disclosure being made. The intention of the new clause is to beef up the provisions and to make it an offence to tip off, not only where a disclosure has been made, but where the person knows that such a disclosure is going to be made. I would have been quite comfortable to reinforce the structure of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Otherwise, the offence is a slightly different one from tipping off. Tipping off is either knowing or believing that a disclosure is going to be made. Here, one commits the offence only if one knew that a disclosure was about to happen. I should be interested to hear the Minister's response on that point and the comments that I thought she was about to make about clause 98.