THIRD EYE

Published: 04/09/2003, Volume II3, No. 5871 Page 19

The death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly must prompt sobering thoughts in all journalists who publish sensitive information from confidential sources in the public sector.

Anyone who regularly reports on the NHS relies routinely on such people; without them, our stories would have little more interest or credibility than the vapidities in official press releases. Mostly these sources suffer no ill effects; occasionally they come a cropper. We move on to our next scoop, they are left to pick up the pieces of a shattered career.

I know of no instance where the discovery of a source's identity has led to their death, as apparently happened in Dr Kelly's case. But the consequences are almost always grim. A panoply of HR torture instruments are usually deployed in the hysteria of a mole hunt, either to extract a confession or as a result of one: loss of pension rights, ritual humiliation in front of colleagues, the P45.

The Department of Health once threatened to send an investigator to question all staff who had access to a document leaked to HSJ, and make them sign a legally sworn statement that they had not breached confidence.Our source suffered several sleepless nights and was physically sick at the prospect.

Serves them right, you might say. Public servants have a duty to uphold the Official Secrets Act, and not gossip to the press. But rarely is the information imparted in this manner seriously damaging - other than to individuals caught transgressing as a result. Usually it is merely inconvenient or embarrassing, most often to politicians. Hence the disproportionate response.

You could commit few other transgressions in your working life that would provoke a reaction as pompous and hysterical as inevitably follows a leak of information. Line managers - formerly so affable, so ready to have cosy chats about your career aspirations - suddenly take on the ruthless and implacable demeanour of an SS commandant.Having sinned against the organisation by betraying its secrets, however trivial, the organisation must exact exemplary retribution.You will be made to feel like atombomb spy Klaus Fuchs. Stepping out of line must be made to appear disloyal, not heroic.

All that reassuring whistleblowing legislation will seem to count for nothing.

Being unmasked to the media, to be sent blinking into the glare of a hundred flash guns, can be the most terrifying consequence of all for someone used to quietly beavering away in the back office.

How will the neighbours react when they see you on the news? If you are lucky, you may be portrayed as pluckily taking on a faceless bureaucracy; if you are not, the resentful media you failed to favour with your leaked information will paint you as an irresponsible Judas.

A DoH junior civil servant, revealed during the Conservative years to be leaking material to the Labour front bench, had to be spirited away to a safe house after the right-wing tabloids in their most vicious and hypocritical mode decided to make a front-page example of him.

He has long since been rehabilitated, and today adds value to the NHS in another role, but still blanches at the mention of his 15 minutes of notoriety and how it changed the direction of his life.

Colleagues can be unforgiving, too: they are more likely to shun you than feel grateful. I was shocked by one consultant's attitude to another who had complained to the local newspaper about conditions at their hospital.

'No-one talks to her.No-one likes her, ' he spat.

'She's a sociopath.' He was conducting me on an undercover tour of the hospital's appallingly shabby wards at the time.

Why, then, does anyone do it? A few are moved by idealism or conscience - a genuine impulse to expose wrong-doing or impatience with the secrecy at the heart of UK society.

They are probably a minority. Some may be politically motivated, outraged at how a particular decision has been reached behind closed doors.

Others may be naïve, imparting titbits simply to appear obliging.Yet others may be malicious or manipulative or plain, old-fashioned stirrers; some may be seeking personal revenge or just flattered to bask in a journalist's attention. Perhaps only a handful are ever pure of motive. All human life is there.

If the net closes in on them, what can journalists do to help? Very little, other than reiterating a pledge never to reveal our sources - still a sacrosanct principle to most. do not panic, be brazen and bluff your way out is probably the best advice, if rather worldly for some tastes.

Without a confession, proving someone leaked information is usually extremely difficult.

And though it may feel like you are being made to live the plot of a spy movie - without the glamour - the instruments of coercion will be banal by comparison.

Peter Davies, a former editor of HSJ, is a freelance journalist, editor and editorial consultant.

Michael White is on holiday.