Eric Johnson (a pseudonym) v Commissioner of Police, NSW Police Force

The plaintiff is a solicitor whose mobile telephone is in police custody following execution of a search warrant. The phone was initially ordered to be returned to him following the determination of a separate Notice of Motion by Adams CJ at CL: Johnson v Commissioner of New South Wales Police [2025] NSWSC 21. Johnson is a pseudonym given to the plaintiff by her Honour for the purposes of orders made under s 7 of the Court Suppression and Non-Publication Orders Act 2010 (NSW).

Some relevant matters of background are contained in her Honour’s judgment at [1]-[5] and [18]-[37]. An understanding of those background matters is not essential to understanding the resolution of the matter now before the Court.

During the course of the return of the mobile telephone to the plaintiff on 21 February 2025, as required by orders made by her Honour, the phone was re-seized by police authorised by a warrant issued on that date by an eligible issuing officer (a Registrar of the Local Court at Parramatta) pursuant to the Law Enforcement Powers and Responsibilities Act 2002 (NSW) (“LEPRA”) (“the search warrant”). The search warrant authorised searching the mobile telephone, and a hard drive containing data previously extracted from it, for data relevant to a number of “searchable offences” as defined in LEPRA. The second defendant in the current proceedings is the police officer who was the applicant for that warrant. The third defendant is the issuing officer of the search warrant, and he has filed a submitting appearance.

By summons filed on 24 March 2025 the plaintiff seeks the following final orders:

The grounds relied on are as follows:

By Notice of Motion filed 26 March 2025 the plaintiff sought orders that:

On 12 August 2025 Hamill J made orders by consent including:

Extensions to those orders were subsequently made. The Notice of Motion before the Court now, filed for the first defendant, the Commissioner of Police (“the Commissioner”), on 3 October 2025, seeks an order that there be no access to the material sent to the Registrar by the Local Court in this matter to the extent that the material is protected by public interest immunity and / or relates to matters of state. The first defendant also seeks an order for the return of any confidential affidavit or submissions to its legal representative, and costs.

An open affidavit of Assistant Commissioner Rodney Smith sworn 18 December 2025, and his confidential affidavit sworn 3 March 2026, were read for the first defendant. Both parties filed written submissions. Two sets of confidential submissions were provided to the Court for the first defendant, one before and one after the hearing on 5 March 2026.

Exhibit 1 was correspondence to this Court dated 19 January 2026 from the Crown Solicitor’s Office, acting for the first defendant, updating compliance with the orders made by Hamill J. This produced the Local Court file relating to the search warrant and indicated that a redacted copy of the search warrant was produced on 5 November 2025, and a revised version of the search warrant, amended to remove redactions to the relevant forms including the occupier’s notice, produced thereafter. This material, which has been provided to the plaintiff, includes the redacted 12-page application for the search warrant, not being a covert warrant. The application was dated 21 February 2025. Approximately 25% of the application had been redacted as it appears in Exhibit 1, and as existed at the time the Notice of Motion was argued on March 5.

On 21 February 2025 an eligible issuing officer granted the warrant, outlining the relevant particulars of the grounds on which he relied to justify its issue. This included the application having detailed an investigation on multiple fronts into the alleged criminal actions and activities of the plaintiff, details of offence allegations which met the definition of “searchable offences” pursuant to s 46A of LEPRA, and that reasonable grounds had been demonstrated to believe the items sought in the application “will afford evidence of the commission of the searchable offence being investigated.”

The “searchable offences” founding the search warrant are supplying a prohibited drug, firing a firearm in or near a public place, doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice, dealing with property suspected of being proceeds of crime, and fraud. With different levels of specificity, the unredacted portions of the application, and the open affidavit of Assistant Commissioner Smith, indicate details of the date or time frame of those alleged offences, other persons alleged to have been involved, and the effect of the allegations.

If not otherwise, the plaintiff is aware at least from the terms of the open affidavit of the second defendant that he is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations into alleged serious criminal activity apart from the “searchable offences” the subject of the warrant. He is aware from that affidavit, and the unredacted portions of the application for the search warrant, of the general identity of some of his alleged criminal associations and the gravity of their alleged offending.

The unredacted search warrant material was annexed to the confidential affidavit of Assistant Commissioner Smith. There are six different components of the application for the search warrant that have been redacted which require different considerations. I will turn to the detail of these six areas and the parties’ submissions after setting out the relevant legal principles and the parties’ submissions of general application.

The plaintiff did not place any evidence before the Court on the Commissioner’s application. The way in which the grounds in his summons are framed suggests that there will be evidence from him on the substantive application.

In the circumstances of this matter it is the common law regarding public interest immunity rather than s 130 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) which applies, although plainly that section has drawn significantly from the common law. Section 130 generally applies to pre-trial matters (such as subpoenas and notices to produce) by way of s 131A, and that section’s application is limited to “a person [who] is required by a disclosure requirement to give information, or to produce a document” and who objects to doing so. That is not the first defendant’s status in these proceedings, the file having been delivered to this Court by the Local Court.

It is necessary to establish legitimate forensic purpose prior to considering whether there is a public interest immunity. Although counsel for the defendant conceded that the plaintiff has a legitimate forensic purpose in seeking access to the redacted portions of the search warrant application, I am of the view that this is not clear cut regarding one aspect of it (which I will explain further below, but which does not make a difference to the outcome). Further, in light of one view regarding an aspect of the first defendant’s argument (that there are statutory provisions which prohibit the use of some of the redacted material), there may be an issue that arises as to legitimate forensic purpose in those limited respects.

The need to maintain effective law enforcement gives rise to a well-recognised category (and sub-categories) of public interest immunity. This aspect of public interest immunity covers protecting both current and future investigations, and maintaining the confidentiality of law enforcement methodology generally, as well as preventing prejudice to the prosecution of an offence: Commissioner of Police (NSW) v Nationwide News Pty Ltd (2008) 70 NSWLR 643; [2007] NSWCA 36.

In determining whether or not to allow a claim of public interest immunity the Court must balance the public interest in withholding the disclosure of information or the production of a document, against the public interest in ensuring that courts of justice performing their functions should have access to relevant evidence: Sankey v Whitlam (1978) 142 CLR 1; s 130(1) of the Evidence Act.

In Alister v The Queen (1984) 154 CLR 404, the High Court’s approach in Sankey v Whitlam is cited with approval as follows, by Gibbs CJ at 412:

It is also open to a Court, if necessary and as occurred on this occasion, to hear confidential oral submissions on the application on behalf of the Commissioner in the absence of the parties and their legal representatives, to allow a more frank discussion of the issues: R v Francis (2004) 145 A Crim R 233 at 237; [2004] NSWCCA 85 at [21]; R v Qaumi (No 11) [2016] NSWSC 252 at [11]; Franklin v Commissioner of Police and Anor [2018] NSWSC 310 at [71].

Before dealing specifically with the six distinct areas of redaction, it is appropriate to set out some further aspects of the parties’ submissions that were of general application to the determination of this motion.

Counsel appearing for the first defendant provided significant assistance in outlining legal principles relevant to the determination of the matter now before the Court, with which no issue was taken by the plaintiff, and which have been significantly drawn from in the brief summary of relevant legal principles above.

It was submitted for the plaintiff that there is a real public interest in ensuring that the private and sensitive records of solicitors are not subject to seizure upon the basis of spurious and unreliable accusations by people lacking in credibility, motivated to lie, or hostile or oppositional to their valuable work. It was submitted that the interests engaged are of the highest order. Related to this, it was submitted that s 140 of the Evidence Act should be borne in mind before the Court would be satisfied that a claim for public interest immunity arises.

It was submitted for the plaintiff that rather than blanket non-access, a more nuanced approach with the following alternatives should be considered: granular redaction whereby the Court itself determines, on a passage-by-passage basis, whether the claim of public interest immunity is made out; to the extent that specific passages are properly protected by public interest immunity, the Court could direct the Commissioner to provide summaries or “gists” of the redacted material sufficient to enable the plaintiff to meaningfully respond, without disclosing the specific information sought to be protected; the plaintiff, through his legal representatives, can offer appropriate undertakings as to confidentiality; or a process of appointing a special counsel or amicus curiae to represent the plaintiff's interests.

In response to a question from me, counsel for the Commissioner submitted that the balancing exercise in this case is rationally informed by the number of searchable offences and the varying amount of information provided in unredacted form in connection with the different potential future charges. Although I am not pre-judging the outcome of the substantive hearing of the plaintiff’s summons, it was submitted that if it appeared that there was, on the face of the application, seemingly enough information provided in connection with one of the searchable offences, and it apparently demonstrated a reasonable basis for the issue of the search warrant, then this was relevant to the balancing exercise. If the unredacted material on the application would support a view that regardless of what was in the other (redacted) material, it was plain that the search warrant was properly issued, that must lower the usefulness of the redacted material. Counsel for the plaintiff agreed with this proposition.

Relatedly, in response to further questioning, both counsel also agreed that as the plaintiff’s summons seeks a declaration that the warrant is invalid, and an order that the decision of the Registrar to issue it be set aside, with no scope (on the ground regarding lack of reasonable grounds to assert the relevant belief) for partially setting the warrant aside, the appearance of reasonable grounds in relation to one searchable offence would be enough for the plaintiff to fail in the orders that he seeks.

Although counsel for the Commissioner made clear he was not intending to bind the person arguing the substantive argument regarding the plaintiff’s 24 March 2025 summons, his submission was that the material placed before the judicial officer determining that application will not include material that has been redacted as it included information subject to public interest immunity or statutory prohibition. Although it was submitted initially that this made the Commissioner’s position more onerous in the hearing of the plaintiff’s summons, upon further questioning I understood Mr Bhalla’s position to be that he understood there could be some difficulty in a judicial officer being able to positively determine there were not reasonable grounds for issuing the search warrant if the material relied upon is not able to be scrutinised. This will arguably be a more limited, but analogous, situation to the one Adams CJ at CL faced in the earlier proceedings: see [82]-[83], [162]-[163], [187].

I propose to interleave my determination of the claim with further detail of the issues arising from each of the six areas of redaction I earlier referred to. I have had all the unredacted material made available, and have undertaken the passage-by-passage analysis sought on the plaintiff’s behalf.

Some preliminary comments are appropriate. This case can be immediately contrasted with the situation where a person does not know they are the subject of police investigation: cf. Beneficial Finance Corporation Ltd v Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (1991) 52 A Crim R 423 (upheld on appeal: (1991) 31 FCR 523 at 550-553). As I have already noted, the plaintiff has been apprised of a significant amount of information regarding the police interest in him.

The merits of the plaintiff’s claim that the proposed search of the phone does not carve out means by which legally privileged and confidential information is protected is of limited relevance to the matters arising on the Notice of Motion now before the Court. The plaintiff’s capacity to argue that point is not significantly reduced by the redactions to the application.

To a limited extent the merits of the plaintiff’s future argument that the applicant for the warrant did not have reasonable grounds to assert the nominated beliefs is before the Court at this point, because it is the public interest in his capacity to argue that point which is to be balanced against any public interest in secrecy. The way the plaintiff’s grounds are framed obscures to some extent the way his case will be argued, although as I noted above it seems to foreshadow the plaintiff giving evidence. An occupant of a house giving evidence “I know there is not a gun in there” does not obviously undermine the legitimacy of a warrant to search the house based on information from someone else suggesting that there is a gun in the house.

I will now address in turn the six areas over which privilege is claimed.

The application for the search warrant provides a general outline of the nature of the investigation and issues relevant to the plaintiff. The presently redacted material on pages 3 to 4 of the application, prior to the (currently redacted) heading “Fire firearm in or near public place”, contains general contextual allegations regarding the plaintiff and his alleged criminal connections and activities, and the ongoing investigation. It does not address directly the reasonable grounds advanced by the second defendant in support of the warrant in respect of the “searchable offences”.

Although legitimate forensic purpose was conceded generally for the first defendant, it is certainly the lowest regarding this aspect of the application as it does not directly address the reasonableness or otherwise of the belief that the data sought will contain evidence regarding the searchable offences. Assuming there is some legitimate forensic purpose in obtaining access, the public interest in open ventilation of this material, in the context of the upcoming hearing of the plaintiff’s summons, is correspondingly lower than other aspects of the redacted material.

Regarding the material outlined in red boxes on page 3 of the unredacted application, and the blue box on page 4, I am satisfied that there is a public interest in disallowing access in accordance with the principles of public interest immunity earlier discussed. Taking into account the terms of the information that has been redacted, paragraphs 12-14 in particular of the confidential affidavit, and the rest of the evidentiary material, there is clearly a public interest in preserving its secrecy that comfortably outweighs the reasonably low public interest in the plaintiff having access to this general introductory material.

The Commissioner’s claim in this respect is upheld.

The search warrant and application available to the plaintiff make clear that a basis put forward was the stated reasonable grounds for belief that data would be obtained in the form of videos and / or images, including GPS data locations, of the plaintiff possessing / handling and / or firing firearms prior to 12 December 2021. As noted earlier, the specific offence of firing a firearm in or near a public place was nominated in the search warrant material available to the plaintiff.

The heading above the information relevant to this offence is redacted with a statement “Statutory prohibition”. I understand the first defendant to have acknowledged by its submissions provided to me subsequent to the hearing that the heading itself is not subject to any statutory prohibition (nor any public interest immunity claim) and this will be unredacted.

Just over a page of the application dealt with the basis offered for obtaining the search warrant in connection with this offence. There is nothing contained within it, as redacted, which allows the plaintiff to understand the nature of the police allegation against him, as advanced to the issuing officer. The only information unredacted is that two named people were scheduled to be sentenced in the District Court in 2024 in connection with charges of drug supply, firearms possession, dealing in proceeds of crime and directing the activities of a criminal group.

I have received two sets of written submissions for the first defendant regarding a statutory provision which would prohibit the plaintiff from using or communicating the entirety of the information redacted regarding this alleged offence over pages 4 and 5 of the application (other than the heading, which as I have indicated should be provided in unredacted form). It is thus arguable that the plaintiff does not have a legitimate forensic purpose in obtaining access to this information.

I am also satisfied on the basis of my review of the passages unredacted, and the contents of Assistant Commissioner Smith’s confidential affidavit, that the first defendant has demonstrated a valid claim for public interest immunity over the content of these particular passages.

On my review of the material the subject of this particular claim, there seems a potentially significant arguable point for the plaintiff regarding what the available evidence founding the stated belief, at its highest, indicated as to the elements of the offence. This potential issue is reasonably clear on the face of the material. I am of the view that if possible the plaintiff, and the Court hearing his summons, should be made aware of the essence of what the application for the search warrant stated was expected to be found on the plaintiff’s mobile telephone data regarding this searchable offence. I expect this can be done in one sentence, without revealing anything as to why or how that belief has come to be formed. I propose to make an order directing the first defendant to provide an open affidavit disclosing this issue (or alternatively provide for the prospect of further confidential submissions and evidence). Insofar as the first defendant has referred to a statutory prohibition on use of the material on these pages of the application, it would seem that the type of further evidence I have proposed will be able to be used in Court (by the plaintiff or defendants) pursuant to the same statutory exception that allowed the second applicant to include this material in the application for the search warrant, or by relevant consent. Insofar as the first defendant has raised a public interest immunity claim, it would seem that the course I have proposed addresses to a substantial extent the public interest in not jeopardizing police investigations while addressing the countervailing public interest I have identified.

In relation to this particular claim, and the areas where I have and will uphold the claim for public interest immunity, I have considered that other alternative options suggested by the plaintiff such as appointment of special counsel and confidentiality undertakings are not appropriate. I have considered in this regard the submissions against this course raised on behalf of the second defendant (including reference to authorities which emphasise the risks involved with such course), and the discussion of alternative procedures by Kiefel CJ, Bell and Keane JJ in HT v The Queen (2019) 269 CLR 403; [2019] HCA 40 including at [30]-[32] and [44]-[45].

In connection with the alleged offence of supplying a prohibited drug, the unredacted application discloses where evidence relied upon had been obtained from, being telephone interception and Cellebrite downloads from the mobile phone of a named person, to whom I will refer as the drug supplier. The drug supplier is elsewhere described in the application as having pleaded guilty to supplying a commercial quantity of a prohibited drug and other offences. The telecommunication evidence available to police was said to contain information regarding the plaintiff “having” a particular celebration at a nominated time and place, with the drug supplier intercepted during the course of that celebration purchasing a quantity of cocaine from another person, explaining “it’s for the lawyer.”

The amount of cocaine referred to by the drug supplier (described not in weight but in quantity of the vessel carrying it) was redacted at the time of the hearing. Following my exchange with counsel appearing for the Commissioner in the absence of counsel for the plaintiff, the Commissioner’s further confidential submissions indicated regarding this portion of the application regarding drug supply (over which there was a public interest immunity claim), the claim was not pressed. This redaction will accordingly be removed and I need make no determination regarding it.

Three lines (on page 5 of the application) are thereafter redacted, and are the subject of the first defendant’s public interest immunity claim. I am not satisfied that a public interest immunity is established in respect of those lines. The information is essentially in the form of a submission as to what should be inferred from the material otherwise disclosed, with one further factual assertion said to be a matter believed by police regarding the potential commission of an offence, and the relationship of this with the plaintiff’s phone data. The issue in the statement of police belief would be something known to the plaintiff as correct or not, and the relevance of the issue would be apparent from the material already disclosed. I am not satisfied that revealing these three lines risks damaging the integrity of an ongoing investigation.

If there is such a public interest, it is outweighed by the public interest in the plaintiff having access to the information. This will mean he has access to the full narrative under the heading alleging drug supply in the application for the search warrant.

The public interest in the plaintiff having knowledge of the full extent of the allegation against him as advanced in the application outweighs any public interest in secrecy. It will be of significance to the plaintiff to be able to demonstrate that there was nothing further put forward to the eligible issuing officer to support the second defendant’s stated belief than the intercepted representation of the drug supplier. Left redacted, the document could give the impression at the hearing of the plaintiff’s summons that the police had evidence of actual supply by the plaintiff, or direct evidence of a representation made by him (or simply unknown evidence the judicial officer cannot make a finding about).

I have given consideration to the potentially difficult issues outlined above in my discussion of the submissions of the parties that, as the plaintiff may not be able to satisfy a Court that there were not reasonable grounds for the stated belief regarding one searchable offence (say the firearms offence, because he has no meaningful information as to what it was based on), then this reduces the purpose of his access to other aspects of the material over which privilege is claimed, because of the “all or nothing” nature of the plaintiff’s summons as framed. However the summons does also seek such other order as the Court sees fit, and was filed in advance of receipt of any access to the Local Court file, and it may be that despite what appears to have been the joint position of the parties during submissions before me, there is scope for some refining of the orders. Further, there is only a limited sense in which I can take into account the likely argument about the firearms aspect of the application, as this is to be argued on a different occasion, with different evidence.

The first defendant’s claim (as pressed) is rejected, and the plaintiff should have access to the passage redacted on page 5 of the application under the heading “Supply prohibited drug” (which is pressed, and is marked in a red box on the unredacted version).

At the stage this matter was heard on 5 March, over four pages of unredacted information was available to the plaintiff from the application regarding this charge. The unredacted information includes the identity of a person who was the alleged victim of a violent crime, upon whom a number of people are alleged to have placed pressure to retract evidence, and acted otherwise to compromise the integrity of the prosecution of the alleged offenders. Dates of relevant events are set out, as is the identity of the two alleged initial offenders of the crime of violence, and the two principal lay perpetrators of the pressure to compromise the prosecution. The arrest of the alleged perpetrators of the crime of violence, and progress of the police investigation into it, is set out. The plaintiff is alleged to have been representing these people, and in receipt of the police facts sheet in connection with their alleged offending, before the pressure was placed upon the victim. The form of the pressure is described in detail in the unredacted part of the affidavit, and the involvement of a named legal practitioner (not the plaintiff) who was allegedly complicit in this is set out in detail.

Redacted material in a red box at the base of page 8 and over to the top of page 9 of the application analyses a particular aspect of the evidence obtained as a result of the investigation and its connection to the plaintiff, which is the subject of a claim for privilege pressed by the first defendant. I will consider it further below.

Following my exchange with counsel appearing for the Commissioner in the absence of counsel for the plaintiff, the Commissioner’s further confidential submissions indicated that the claim for public interest immunity over a number of portions previously redacted on page 9 and the top of page 10 of the application were not pressed. These redactions will accordingly be removed and I need make no determination regarding them.

The material to be made available to the plaintiff in the first sentence on the base of page 9 includes an expectation as to what examination of the plaintiff’s phone will reveal, which relates in part to the redacted material at the base of page 8 to the top of page 9, to which access has not been granted. The stated belief relates also to other material that the plaintiff has had access to, such as the existence of the examination of the other solicitor’s telephone service, which has never been redacted.

I am not satisfied that there is a public interest in foreclosing the plaintiff’s consideration of the information contained on the base of page 8 to the top of page 9. In the context of the amount of material revealed to the plaintiff about this investigation, I am not satisfied that there is a risk of thwarting it by revealing that passage.

Further, I am satisfied that there is a public interest in the full contents of the application pertaining to the alleged public justice offence being able to be ventilated in the substantive proceedings. There is actually very little of importance in the passage for which a claim for public interest immunity is pressed which is not otherwise revealed. This material being redacted in the information placed before the judicial officer dealing with the summons risks that judicial officer not knowing whether there was something more significant placed before the eligible issuing officer.

Further, as the allegation deals squarely with the plaintiff’s work as a legal practitioner, there is a public interest in the Court dealing with his summons understanding the ambit of the allegations advanced in support of searching the phone in connection with this possible offence, which includes alleged interaction with clients.

Accordingly the first defendant’s claim for public interest immunity, insofar as it is pressed regarding the allegation of doing an act with intent to pervert the course of justice, is rejected. The plaintiff will have access (by the first defendant’s agreement subsequent to the hearing, and by my ruling) to the full extent of the contents of the application in this regard.

A number of passages which appear under the above heading on pages 10 and 11 of the application have not at this stage been provided to the plaintiff, and a mixed claim is made for the first defendant that there is a public interest immunity and that for some of the information there is a statutory prohibition against its use by the plaintiff (which as outlined above, in connection with the firearms offence, is a matter which may impact on legitimate forensic purpose and the balancing exercise).

The unredacted passages under this heading make reference to the plaintiff’s declared financial earnings in 2023 and 2024, and also state that something (redacted) is relevant because the device was seized on 25 August 2023 and held secured by police since that date.

The application commences with the second defendant’s statement of reasonable grounds for believing that the mobile phone and hard drive will contain data relating to transactions / betting conducted at Star City Casino involving the plaintiff dealing with what police believe is the proceeds of crime from 1 December 2022 to 25 August 2023. As outlined earlier, there are specified in the application the searchable offences of dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime, and fraud. The search warrant nominates these as relevant searchable offences, and authorises the second defendant and other police to search for data relating to the said Star City Casino transactions.

There is no heading in the unredacted application entitled “Fraud” or “Dealing with proceeds of crime”. As is apparent from the judgment of Adams CJ at CL at [28], the “searchable offences” specified in the last search warrant were supplying a prohibited drug, firing a firearm in or near public place, and doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice.

It would be apparent to the plaintiff from the above that the redacted portions on pages 10 and 11 of the application, under the “New information” heading, relate to the allegations of fraud and dealing in proceeds of crime, and are related to alleged transactions and betting at Star City Casino prior to the seizure of the mobile phone on 25 August 2023 (although relying also on the plaintiff’s financial status since that time).

Redacted material under this heading at the base of page 10, and the first line and a half on page 11, are subject to a statutory prohibition on its use, which may indicate an absence of legitimate forensic purpose, because the plaintiff would not be entitled to use the material in the substantive proceedings.

The above passage, and the following two boxes on page 11 which are redacted, are also the subject of a claim for public interest immunity. I am satisfied on the material placed before me that there is a public interest in not providing access to this information due to the risk of harm to an ongoing investigation if disclosed at this stage.

The public interest in the plaintiff being able to more fulsomely argue his application that the search warrant be declared invalid on the basis that there were not reasonable grounds for the stated belief relied upon is outweighed by the public interest in the material not being disclosed at this stage.

The claim of the first defendant in relation to material on pages 10 to 11 of the application under the heading “New Information un-covered since the granting of the initial search warrant” is upheld.

There are a few further sentences the subject of the first defendant’s claim. The claim in respect of the named body on the third line of page 12 of the application (in a green box on the unredacted application) is upheld on the basis of public interest immunity (this related to a statutory prohibition).

As to the balance of the sentences from the base of page 11 over to the top of page 12, I am satisfied in part that a relevant public interest immunity has been established. Insofar as there is an alleged victim for one of the offences the subject of the application, they are already named, as are the alleged perpetrators of that offence. Otherwise, there is reference in this material which is clearly the subject of a proper claim of public interest immunity, and I am comfortably satisfied that the public interest in maintaining secrecy of this information outweighs the public interest in the plaintiff having full access to it. I specifically take into account paragraph 29 of Assistant Commissioner Smith’s confidential affidavit.

Accordingly I make the following orders: