Shortcomings of FoI legislation revealed

Shortcomings of FoI legislation revealed

The man who arranged for leaked MPs' expenses details to be given to the Daily Telegraph has been named.

Former SAS man John Wick acted as a broker, passing the details from an anonymous source to the newspaper.

Mr Wick said the version of the expenses which the Commons was due to release had lots of details removed and he felt the public had a right to know.

Mr Wick said he had no regrets, but that his main concern was how serious and unknown the consequences might be.

In a video interview, he told Telegraph.co.uk: "The biggest problem was knowing you had to do something but not knowing how violent the writhing of the snake was going to be.

"We were going to hold on to something at the end and not know how long it was and how sharp its fangs were. But sometimes you've just got to step out."

Mr Wick added that he felt there was an injustice in how much information the government wanted to have about the public, while they wanted to keep their own affairs secret.

Man behind expenses leak revealed (BBC News, 23 May 2009)

MPs' expenses: middleman admits helping release details to Daily Telegraph(The Guardian, 23 May 2009)