"Wife of 21 July plotter convicted"

When the EU's anti-money laundering regulations were gold-plated into UK law back in 2003, a wise and experienced VAT barrister told me that the definition of a police state was a state in which "it is a crime not to report a crime".

Under the anti-money laundering regulations, if the authorities are too lazy or incompetent to actually catch the baddies, they can simply imprison any accountant, solicitor or banker who had anything to do with the 'proceeds of crime'. So they want to turn us all into informants; anybody who "knows or suspects or has reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting that a person is engaged in money laundering must, as soon as is practicable after the information or other matter comes to him, disclose it to the nominated officer or a person authorised for the purposes of these Regulations by the Director General of the National Criminal Intelligence Service" (para. 7(1)(b)

I only did one or two units of criminal law, but I do remember that even if you are not directly involved in a crime, under the rules on inchoate offences (i.e. aiding and abetting; incitement; conspiracy; or attempt) you can be punished just as severely as if you had committed the actual crime. This all seemed perfectly fair to me. And we've also always had the offences of perverting the course of justice and concealment for payment under s5 Criminal Law Act 1967.

Failing to report that somebody else was about to, or had committed a crime was not an offence IIRC*.

In the post 9/11 hysteria, the gummint's "Anti terror laws" included a rule that said that failing to report knowledge that somebody was planning an atrocity was also a crime, thus leading us one step closer to being a proper Police State.

The law had its first proper outing today.

Now, I despise Islam and terrorism as much as the next man, but it seems that under the old law, she couldn't have been punished for "assisting with the escape plan"** or even for the fact that she "removed and destroyed evidence".

Just saying, is all.

* It appears that the right to remain silent does not necessarily extend to a spouse in England & Wales, but that's by-the-by.

** I assume that she only helped with the escape plan after the crime had taken place - as he was intending to blow himself up, it seems unlikely they had planned it beforehand. If they had planned the escape beforehand, then of course she would be an accomplice, but by the same token, that would prove that he was doing this as a stunt and not intending to kill anybody. So he clearly was intending to kill people, a rather chilling thought, but hey.