Rank Film Distributors Ltd v Video Information Centre

The appellants, who were film companies owning the copyright to films produced and made by them, believed that certain unauthorised persons were engaged in pirating copies of their films and recording and selling unauthorised video cassettes of them. The respondents were suspected of selling the cassettes. The appellants accordingly issued a writ against the suspected unauthorised persons seeking an injunction restraining them from infringing the appellants' copyright. The appellants also sought and were granted Anton Piller orders which, inter alia, required the respondents to disclose (i) the names and addresses of persons who supplied the cassettes and customers who bought them, (ii) all invoices, letters and other documents relating to the cassettes, and (iii) the whereabouts of all pirate cassettes and master copies known to the respondents. The respondents applied to the court to have the orders varied by expunging the requirements as to disclosure, on the grounds that by disclosing the information they might incriminate themselves and the orders therefore infringed the privilege against self-incrimination. The respondents contended that if they were compelled to disclose the information they would incriminate themselves by providing evidence on which they could be prosecuted and convicted of (i) contravention of s 21 of the Copyright Act 1956, (ii) contravention of s 18 of the Theft Act 1968 and (iii) conspiracy to defraud at common law. A person associated with the respondents in the pirating of the films was in the course of being prosecuted on charges of conspiracy to defraud. The judge dismissed the respondents' application but on appeal the Court of Appeal ([1980] 2 All ER 273) held that the orders requiring disclosure should be expunged because they were contrary to the principle of privilege against self-incrimination. The appellants appealed to the House of Lords seeking reinstatement of the orders. The appellants, while recognising the existence of privilege against self-incrimination by discovery, contended that the court ought to compel the respondents to disclose the information sought while imposing a restriction on the information being used in a criminal prosecution of the respondents.

Held - Since a charge against the respondents of conspiracy to defraud would not be a contrived, fanciful or remote possibility but an appropriate and exact description of what the respondents and the other persons involved had done, it was clear that disclosure by the respondents of the information sought would tend to expose them to such a charge, which would be a serious charge and would, if proved, attract heavy penalties. It followed that the claim of privilege against self-incrimination should be upheld. Moreover, there was no way in which the court could compel disclosure while at the same time protecting the respondents from the consequences of self-incrimination, since an express restriction imposed by the court on the use of any information disclosed would be binding only on the appellants and not on anyone else who brought a criminal

prosecution and in any event would not bind a criminal court to exclude the information as inadmissible evidence. The appeal would accordingly be dismissed (see p 80 h to p 81 b and f to j, p 82 a to c g h, p 84 a b e to g and p 86 b to d, post).
   Riddick v Thames Board Mills Ltd [1977] 3 All ER 677 distinguished.
   Per Curiam. In cases involving large scale and systematic infringements of copyright, offences against s 21 of the 1956 Act are probably too trivial, having regard to the maximum penalty of a Ł50 fine, to be taken into account when considering whether a claim for privilege against self-incrimination should succeed. Furthermore, the risk of a successful prosecution under s 18 of the 1968 Act, which applies to theft of 'property', is too remote to be considered because copyright is not 'property' for the purposes of s 18 (see p 80 g h, p 81 h, p 82 g h, p 83 h to p 84 a and p 86 b to d, post).
   Per Lord Russell. Because the privilege against incrimination could largely deprive the owner of a copyright of his just rights to the protection of his property, legislation similar to s 31 of the 1968 Act would be welcome; the aim of such legislation should be to remove the privilege while at the same time preventing the use in criminal proceedings of statements which would otherwise be privileged (see p 86 c d, post).
   Decision of the Court of Appeal [1980] 2 All ER 273 affirmed.

Interlocutory appeal
The appellants, Rank Film Distributors Ltd, Universal City Studios Inc, Cinema International Corpn (UK), ITC Entertainment Ltd, ITC Film Distributors Ltd and EMI Film Ltd, the plaintiffs in an action against the respondents, Video Information Centre (a firm), Michael Anthony Lee, Susan Gomberg, Stylestone Ltd, Videochord Ltd and Michael George Dawson, appealed against the decision of the Court of Appeal (Bridge and Templeman LJJ, Lord Denning MR dissenting) ([1980] 2 All ER 273, [1980] 3 WLR 487) on 15 February 1980 allowing in part the respondents' appeal against the decision of Whitford J on 31 July 1979 to refuse to discharge or vary two orders made by Walton J on 2nd and 5 July 1979. The orders made by Walton J, which were made on ex parte applications, ordered, inter alia, (i) the second, third and sixth defendants to disclose the names and addresses of persons, films or companies to whom they had supplied or offered to supply to them or who were engaged in the production, distribution or sale of illicit copies of films used or intended to be used in making illicit copies of films, (ii) the second, third and sixth defendants to disclose by affidavit all invoices, labels, books of account, letters lists or other documents within their possession, power, custody and control relating to illicit films supplied by or to the defendants, (iii) the second, third and fourth defendants to permit representatives of the plaintiffs to enter four named premises for the purpose of looking for, inspecting and photographing all illicit copy films, labels or packaging, invoices, bills, letters, notes or other documents, equipment, films (including video cassettes and master tapes) and blank film stock, and removing into the custody of the plaintiffs' solicitors all or any such items except equipment, (iv) all the defendants, except the sixth defendant, and/or the person appearing to be in charge of the four named premises to produce to the person serving the order all such films, labels, packaging, invoices, bills, letters, other documents or film stock, and (v) all the defendants to disclose to the person serving the order the whereabouts of all illicit copy films or masters for making copies known to the defendants. The facts are set out in the opinion of Lord Wilberforce.

   In this case we are concerned with video tapes of films. The appellant plaintiffs represent the owners of the copyright in nearly every feature film in the English language shown in this country, each representing a large investment, many of them very valuable properties. The respondent defendants are persons alleged to be concerned with the wholesale pirating of these films by distributing video tapes illegally made from master tapes, themselves made from the original 35 mm films, copyright in which belongs to the appellants. Those concerned in the present appeal are the first three respondents, effectively Mr Lee and Ms Gomberg, who own the Video Information Centre. The sixth respondent, Mr Dawson, who owns or controls the fifth respondent and between whom and Lee/Gomberg a business relationship appears to exist, had a laboratory in Essex which was raided by the police in April 1979 and where 400 illicit copy films were seized and a Rank reproducing machine was found. Mr Dawson is in the course of being prosecuted on charges of alleged conspiracy to defraud. He did not take the present proceedings to the Court of Appeal and is not a party to the appeal to this House. So far as Lee/Gomberg are concerned, it is enough to say that the evidence is strong and clear that they have engaged in the distribution and sale of pirated copy video tapes on a very large scale, to Kuwait and other places. It amply satisfied the requirements laid down by the Chancery judges for the making of an Anton Piller order. The case is one for an order to be made in such terms as will give the maximum legally possible protection to the appellants to whose business the respondents' activities represent a major threat.
   The main question before this House is whether Mr Lee and Ms Gomberg can avail themselves of the privilege against self-incrimination in order to deprive the appellants of an important part of the relief which they seek. It may seem to be a strange paradox that the worse, ie the more criminal, their activities can be made to appear, the less effective is the civil remedy that can be granted, but that, prima facie, is what the privilege achieves. The orders under appeal are elaborate. A summary of their effect is sufficient. They included:
   1. Injunctions from making or dealing with illicit copies of any of the appellants' films; no question arises as to these.
   2. An injunction restraining the respondents from warning third parties of the existence of these proceedings except for the purpose of obtaining legal advice; no question.
   3. An order relating to the identity of those concerned with the first and fifth respondents; no question.
   4. An order-

Thus, for present purposes, the orders fall under three heads:
   (1) Requiring the respondents to supply information.
   (2) Requiring the respondents to allow access to premises for the purpose of looking for illicit copy films and to allow their being removed to safe custody.
   (3) Requiring the respondents to disclose and produce documents.
   The orders under (2) were upheld by the Court of Appeal, and this part of the court's decision was not seriously contested in this House. In any event I am satisfied that there was jurisdiction to make these orders and that the privilege against self-incrimination has no application to them. The privilege against self-incrimination is invoked as regards (1) and (3). The essential question being whether the provision of the information or production of the documents may tend to incriminate the respondents, it is necessary to see what possible heads of criminal liability there may be. There are three.
   (1) Section 21 of the Copyright Act 1956 creates summary offences under a number of headings, some of which would have potential applicability to the respondents. For a first offence there is a maximum fine of Ł50 however many infringing articles are involved.
   (2) Conspiracy to commit a breach of s 21 of the 1956 Act. By virtue of the Criminal Law Act 1977 no greater punishment can be imposed for such a conspiracy then for the substantive offence under s 21.
   (3) Conspiracy to defraud, an offence at common law left unaffected by the 1977 Act.
   As to (1) and (2), I think that a substantial argument could be raised that these should not be taken account of in connection with a claim for privilege. The criminal offences created by s 21 cover almost precisely the same ground as the bases for civil liability under the Copyright Act 1956. I would be reluctant to hold that in civil proceedings for infringement based on specified acts the defendants could claim privilege against discovery on the ground that those same acts establish a possible liability for a petty offence. In practice, as one would suppose, s 21 is very rarely invoked; only one case came to our knowledge, namely of one prosecution in 1913 under the 1911 Act, and potential liability under it might well be disregarded as totally insubstantial. The same argument would apply as regards conspiracy to breach it.
   However, it is only too clear (and I deliberately use the language of reluctance) that supply of the information and production of the documents sought would tend to expose the respondents to a charge of conspiracy to defraud. In the very nature of this activity, a number of persons are certain to be involved in it, in printing the master tapes, copying from the master tapes, seeking and accepting orders, and distributing the illicit copies. A charge of conspiracy to defraud, so far from being as it sometimes is, a contrived addition to other charges, is here an appropriate and exact description of what is being done. So far from it being contrived, fanciful, or imagined, it is the charge on which Mr Dawson, who appears on the existing evidence to be closely connected with Mr Lee and Ms Gomberg, is to stand trial. It cannot be said that charges under this head would be

nothing but charges under s 21 of the 1956 Act under another name. An essential ingredient in them is dishonesty, which may exist in cases brought under s 21, but which may not. The much heavier penalties also make it more likely that charges would be brought of conspiracy to defraud. Unless some escape can be devised from this conclusion, the privilege must inevitably attach.
   Counsel for the appellants courageously attempted to suggest an escape route on the following lines. The courts, he submitted, must in all cases try to reconcile protection of a defendant from possible self-incrimination with doing justice to a plaintiff. Whatever may have been the position when the privilege was first worked out by the judges, modern procedure is now more flexible, and makes it possible to do justice without denying protection. It is all the more necessary to find a flexible approach, because so many actions which formerly involved civil liability only are now, by modern trends in legislation, made criminal offences. Thus many ordinary cases of 'passing off' are now offences under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. If full scope is given to the privilege against self-incrimination, potential plaintiffs, in this area of industrial property, will fail to get a remedy in the civil courts. Counsel was at pains to make clear that he was not, in these submissions, attempting to negate or undermine the privilege against self- incrimination. This has been too long established in our law as a basic liberty of the subject (in other countries it has constitutional status) to be denied. It has received modern recognition in the Civil Evidence Act 1968, s 14, and in this House.
   It is certainly correct to say that existing law and practice to some extent prevent matter disclosed on discovery in civil proceedings from being used to the prejudice of the disclosing party. The protection is described with different words: the matter must not be used for an 'improper' purpose (see Alterskye v Scott [1948] 1 All ER 469) or a 'collateral object' (see Bray on Discovery (1885, p 238)) or, most strongly, 'otherwise than in the action in which they are disclosed' (see Distillers Co (Biochemicals) Ltd v Times Newspapers Ltd [1975] 1 All ER 41 at 48, [1975] QB 613 at 621 per Talbot J).
   In the most recent case (Riddick v Thames Board Mills Ltd [1977] 3 All ER 677 at 687, [1977] QB 881 at 896) Lord Denning MR used the words 'for any ulterior or alien purpose'. But it has never been held that these expressions, however wide, extend to criminal proceedings; if they did there would be no need for the privilege. Counsel for the appellants was therefore obliged to suggest that, even granting this, the courts had power positively to decide in a particular case, as the counterpart of the obligation to disclose, that any matter which is compulsorily disclosed as the result of the court's process should be inadmissible in evidence. But I cannot accept that a civil court has any power to decide in a manner which would bind a criminal court that evidence of any kind is admissible or inadmissible in that court. Certainly a criminal court always has a discretion to exclude evidence improperly obtained if to admit it would unfairly prejudice a defendant. But to substitute for a privilege a dependence on the court's discretion would substantially be to the defendant's detriment. That the civil court has not the power to declare evidence inadmissible is strikingly shown by s 31 of the Theft Act 1968 which contains an express provision by which a person is obliged to answer questions put in proceedings for the recovery of property and to comply with orders made in such proceedings and which states that no statement or admission so made shall be admissible in evidence against the person concerned in proceedings for an offence under the Act. Infringement of copyright is not theft, so this section cannot be invoked.
   The appellants' submission amounts to a request to the courts, by judicial decision, to extend this statutory provision to civil proceedings generally, or at least to these proceedings. But this, in my opinion, the courts cannot do. I should add that Riddick's case is no support for the proposition that answers or documents extracted in civil proceedings are inadmissible in criminal proceedings: the remark of Lord Denning MR in the Court of Appeal ([1980] 2 All ER 273 at 281, [1980] 3 WLR 487 at 507) is made with reference to an argument for applying the Theft Act, s 31 by analogy (which I cannot accept) and clearly does not represent Lord Denning MR's view as to Riddick's case (see [1980] 2 All ER 273 at 279, [1980] 3 WLR 487 at 504).

   There are some further points on this aspect of the case. First, I do not think that adequate protection can be given by extracting from the plaintiffs, as a term of being granted an Anton Piller order, an undertaking not to use the information obtained in criminal proceedings. Even if such an undertaking were binding (see to the contrary Triplex Safety Glass Co Ltd v Lancegaye Safety Glass (1934) Ltd [1939] 2 All ER 613, [1939] 2 KB 395) the protection is only partial, viz against prosecution by the plaintiff himself. Moreover, whatever direct use may or may not be made of information given, or material disclosed, under the compulsory process of the court, it must not be overlooked that, quite apart from that, its provision or disclosure may set in train a process which may lead to incrimination or may lead to the discovery of real evidence of an incriminating character. In the present case, this cannot be discounted as unlikely; it is not only a possible but probably the intended result. The party from whom disclosure is asked is entitled, on established law, to be protected from these consequences. Second, and this was very much an argument of last resort, counsel for the appellants suggested that protection could be given by a hearing, wholly or in part, in camera. But such procedure is totally alien, except in the most exceptional cases, to our procedure and I do not think that so wide an extension of it as the submission involves ought to be contemplated. Third, there are some procedural considerations. The appellants argued that, even if, in principle, the privilege against self-incrimination is capable of attaching in cases such as the present, that should not prevent the order for information and production being made; the defendant should be left to raise the question of privilege, if he wishes, and if necessary the court should rule on it. The difficulty is, however, that the orders are intended to take effect immediately on the arrival of the plaintiff's representatives (including, under existing practice, a solicitor) at the defendant's premises, and if the defendant were to refuse to comply, even in reliance on the privilege, he might, at least technically, be liable in contempt. I do not think that this problem is for this House to resolve. Attention can merely be drawn to it, and in due course, no doubt, forms of order will be worked out which will enable the orders to be as effective as practicable while preserving the defendant's essential rights. All that this House can do is to decide that the privilege against self-incrimination is capable of being, invoked. I would so decide.
   Some other points were taken by the respondents as to the orders made in this case. Some were said to be too widely expressed, in particular one which required each defendant to disclose the whereabouts of all illicit copy films or masters (ie master copies) for making the same known to that defendant. I can see that they may have force, but the proper forum for them to be raised and debated is in the Chancery Division before judges particularly experienced in the framing and controlling of interlocutory orders. The record shows that they are fully sensitive to the need for keeping these orders within due limits.
   I would dismiss the present appeal.

LORD FRASER OF TULLYBELTON. My Lords, recent technical developments have made it possible for anyone who can get a cinema film into his possession for a few hours to transpose it on to magnetic tape. Having made a master copy on magnetic tape he can make hundreds of copies from it which can then be inserted in cassettes and sold to the public. These cassettes can be played on a domestic television set provided it has a suitable attachment, called a video cassette recorder (VCR), which can now be bought for a few hundred pounds. Unauthorised copies are sold to the public at prices of Ł100 or Ł150 each and the owners of the copyright suffer serious loss as a result.
The appellants are, or represent, the owners of nearly every major English language cinema film shown in public cinemas in the United Kingdom. The first four respondents

are alleged to be dealers in pirated copies of many of these films, and the fifth and sixth respondents are alleged to be makers of pirate copies. The appellants are naturally concerned to protect their valuable copyright in these films. Ordinary actions against dealers in illicit films are of little avail to the copyright owners because the dealers are unlikely to be able to pay substantial damages and injunctions against them merely close down one outlet for the films and do not prevent the manufacture of more unauthorised copies which can then be sold through other outlets. The main concern of the appellants is, therefore, to trace the whereabouts of the master tapes in order to take action against those who control them. For this purpose a form of order has been devised which is generally referred to as an Anton Piller order, from the case of Anton Piller KG v Manufacturing Processes Ltd [1976] 1 All ER 779, [1976] Ch 55. These orders are only made when the plaintiff produces strong prima facie evidence of infringement of his copyright. They are made on the ex parte application of the plaintiff, are served on the defendants without previous notice and order the defendants to make immediate discovery of documents and to give immediate answers to interrogatories designed to find out particularly the names and addresses of their suppliers. Orders of that general nature, tending gradually to increase in stringency (see EMI Ltd v Sarwar and Haidar [1977] FSR 146), have been found effective and have been made in several reported cases in England as well as in New Zealand (apparently independently of the English development) and also in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, apparently following the English practice. Now for the first time the defendants have objected to making discovery and to answering the interrogatories on the ground that by doing so they might incriminate themselves. If the objection is well founded the usefulness of the Anton Piller type of order will be much reduced if not practically destroyed.
In the present case, two orders were made by Walton J on 2 and 5 July 1979 respectively. The order of 2 July, which was directed to the first four respondents, was a long, complicated document. The part of it to which the respondents object on the ground that it might require them to incriminate themselves is the part which ordered them to disclose to the person who served the order the names and addresses, so far as known to them, of all customers to whom they had supplied illicit films and of all persons who had supplied them or offered to supply them with illicit films. It also ordered them to permit the person who served the order to 'enter forthwith' their premises for the purpose of looking for, inspecting and photographing documents relating to illicit copy films, but the objection of self-incrimination is not made against this part of the order. By 5 July, when the second order was made, the appellants had apparently discovered the name of the sixth respondent, and by the order of that date each of the six respondents was ordered to disclose to the person who served the order the whereabouts of all illicit films, or masters for making them, known to that respondent. This order is said to infringe the privilege against self-incrimination.
The respondents assert that, if they are compelled to disclose the information mentioned in the parts of the orders to which they object, they will run a real risk of providing evidence tending to show that they have been guilty of criminal offences. Three offences are particularly suggested, namely (1) contravention of s 21 of the Copyright Act 1956, (2) the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud, and possibly (3) an offence against s 18 of the Theft Act 1968. The risk of prosecution under the Theft Act 1968 may, I think, be disregarded as remote, because that Act applies to theft of 'property' which is defined in a way that does not appear to include copyright, but only, so far as this appeal is concerned, to the physical objects such as tapes and cassettes which are of small value by themselves. The risk of prosecution under s 21 of the Copyright Act 1956 is theoretically greater because acts which are infringements of copyright, including the making of unauthorised copies (s 13(5)) and knowingly importing or selling infringing copies (s 16(2) and (3)(a)) are very likely also to be offences under s 21(1). But the offences created by s 21 are only ancillary remedies for breach of copyright, as appears from the cross-heading to Part III of the Act, and they are treated as comparatively trivial with a maximum penalty (as amended) of Ł50. It would, in my

opinion, be unreasonable to allow the possibility of incrimination of such offences to obstruct disclosure of information which would be of much more value to the owners of the infringed copyright than any protection they might obtain from s 21.
   But conspiracy to defraud is a different matter. It is a serious offence. The risk of those who deal in or manufacture illicit films being prosecuted for it is by no means remote or fanciful. Indeed the sixth respondent is now facing prosecution on that ground for the matters with which this appeal is concerned. Subject to a point, to be noticed hereafter, with regard to an offence of conspiracy, the possibility of prosecution on this ground does therefore raise the question whether the defendant can rely on the privilege against being compelled to incriminate himself. The privilege itself is well established in English law. It is impliedly recognised by s 14(1) of the Civil Evidence Act 1968, and authority for its existence is to be found in Triplex Safety Glass Co Ltd v Lancegaye Safety Glass (1934) Ltd [1939] 2 All ER 613, [1939] 2 KB 395 and in Rio Tinto Zinc Corpn v Westinghouse Electric Corpn [1978] 1 All ER 434, [1978] AC 547. The appellants do not dispute the existence of a privilege against compulsory self-incrimination by discovery or by answering interrogatories. But their counsel presented a powerful argument to the effect that the privilege ought not to be upheld in its simple form, to the serious prejudice of the appellants, when the object of the privilege could be attained in a way that would not prejudice the interests of parties such as the appellants. It could be attained, according to the argument, by compelling the discovery and answers, while relying on a restriction, express or implied, against the use of information thereby disclosed in any prosecution of the party making the discovery.
   At one stage, the argument seemed to depend on the possibility that the court which ordered the discovery might place an express restriction on the use of any information disclosed. In my opinion, any argument on that basis must be rejected. A restriction by the court making the order would, no doubt, be effective to bind the party who obtained the order, but it can hardly be suggested that it would be effective to prevent a prosecutor in the public interest from using or an English criminal court (a fortiori a Scottish criminal court if a conspiracy were prosecuted in Scotland) from admitting the information in evidence at a trial. All evidence which is relevant is prima facie admissible in a criminal trial, although the trial judge has a discretion to exclude evidence which, though admissible, has been obtained by unfair means from the accused after commission of the offence (see R v Sang [1979] 2 All ER 1222, [1980] AC 402). But it is obvious that a person who has to rely on an exercise of judicial discretion is in a less secure position than one who, by relying on the privilege, can avoid providing the information in the first place. We were referred to some old cases where the court had considered the restrictions on the use of documents which it ordered to be disclosed. In one case the court required an undertaking by the party in whose favour the order was made not to use answers for the purpose of enforcing penalties (see Jackson v Benson (1826) 1 Y & J 32, 148 ER 574) and in another case Page Wood V-C said that the court had a right to say to the person who has obtained the production of documents, 'Those documents shall never be used by you except under the authority of the Court' (my emphasis) (see Reynolds v Godlee (1858) 4 K & J 88 at 92, 70 ER 37 at 39). Such qualified restrictions are clearly of much less value to the party making discovery than the privilege itself would have been.
   The main basis of the argument was an implied rule, said to be derived from Riddick v Thames Board Mills Ltd [1977] 3 All ER 677, [1977] QB 881, to the effect that evidence which has been disclosed under compulsion in a civil action cannot be used against a person who has disclosed it for the purposes of another civil action or of a criminal prosecution. It was argued that any incriminating information disclosed by a person making discovery or answering interrogatories would enjoy complete protection by reason of that rule, because the information would have been given under compulsion, in respect that refusal to give it would be contempt of court. I would make one preliminary observation on that argument. It seems to me to go much too far. If it is well founded, it means that the established practice whereby judges warn witnesses that they need not answer questions addressed to them in oral examination in court, if the

answers might tend to incriminate them, is unnecessary, because refusal to answer would, in the absence of the warning, be contempt of court and any incriminating evidence having been given under compulsion would not be admissible against them in criminal proceedings. I approach a proposition leading to that result with some scepticism. In any event, Riddick was concerned only with the question of the use to which documents recovered on discovery could be put by the party who had obtained discovery. Lord Denning MR stated the principle in a sentence thus ([1977] 3 All ER 677 at 688, [1977] QB 881 at 896):

   That statement of principle would have to be extended to include cases such as Norwich Pharmacal Co v Customs and Excise Comrs [1973] 2 All ER 943, [1974] AC 133, where an order was made for discovery of information for the purpose of its being used in another action. The principle is, I think, that information is not to be used by the party who gets discovery for purposes other than that for which production was ordered. But Riddick had nothing to do with the use of information for prosecution in the public interest. On the contrary, both Lord Denning MR and Stephenson LJ referred with approval to the observations of Talbot J in Distillers Co (Biochemicals) Ltd v Times Newspapers Ltd [1975] 1 All ER 41 at 48, [1975] QB 613 at 621 recognising that there might be a public interest in favour of disclosure which would override the public interest in the administration of justice which goes to preserve the confidentiality of documents disclosed on discovery (see [1977] 3 All ER 677 at 688, 694, [1977] QB 881 at 896, 901). That is clearly correct. If a defendant's answers to interrogatories tend to show that he has been guilty of a serious offence I cannot think that there would be anything improper in his opponent reporting the matter to the criminal authorities with a view to prosecution, certainly if he had first obtained leave from the court which ordered the interrogatories, and probably without such leave. If that is right the object of the privilege against self-incrimination would not be completely achieved by relying on any rule which can be derived from Riddick.
   Moreover, if the incriminating information given on discovery or in answer to interrogatories were disclosed subsequently in open court in the civil action, it might be heard and might then be used in a criminal prosecution against the defendant. In an attempt to meet this difficulty counsel for the appellants submitted that the defendant's interests could be protected by the courts sitting in camera whenever incriminating information disclosed on discovery was to be referred to. Such procedure would raise considerable practical difficulties and it would also be objectionable on principle. There are cases where in order that justice may be done the court has to sit in camera (see Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417, [1911-13] All ER Rep 1), but it is important that such cases should be limited to those where proceedings in private are absolutely necessary in the interests of justice. If the procedure for which the appellants are contending would lead to more frequent hearings in camera, as I think it would, then that is an additional argument against adopting it. Accordingly I reach the conclusion, with some regret, that the respondents' objection based on the fear of self-incrimination is well founded and ought to be upheld.
   An alternative and narrower contention was advanced by counsel for the appellants to cover the event of his being unsuccessful on the main contention. This narrower contention raises the point about a charge of conspiracy to which I have already referred. It was said that there is a special exception to the privilege against self-incrimination where the incrimination relates to the offence of conspiracy, because of the wide range of facts that might be included in that offence. There is some support for this argument in observations by judges in cases to which we were referred (see London (Mayor and citizens) v Levy (1803) 8 Ves J 398, 32 ER 408, Attorney General v Conroy (1838) 2 Jo Ex Ir 791 and Chadwick v Chadwick (1852) 22 LJ Ch 329), but in my opinion they do not

provide any clear principle on which an exception to the general rule against compulsory self-incrimination could be based. They do not appear to have been followed in recent years. Accordingly I would not accept the narrower submission on this point.
The order of 2 July 1979 was criticised as being too wide, particularly in so far as it called on the respondents to disclose the names of all persons who are engaged in the production, distribution and sale of illicit films, and not merely those persons with whom the defendants have had business dealings. In my opinion that criticism was justified and the order ought to have been restricted in that way.
For these reasons I would dismiss the appeal.