JUDGE CRABTREE: I should say at once that this being an appeal from summary convictions, in the ordinary way I would simply announce the finding of the Court without giving more than the simplest of reasons, but it is apparent in this case that whatever the decision of this Court, either side is likely to wish to appeal, and, that being so, it seems appropriate for me to give what, in effect, is a full judgment so that if the Divisional Court do have to consider the matter they have everything set out in one piece.

These are appeals against convictions by two appellants, one of whom was convicted on two summonses, the other on four summonses, alleging offences under Regulation 4 (2) (a) and (b) of the RAF Menwith Hill bylaws of 1996. That is Statutory Instrument No. 105 of 1996, said to have been made in the exercise of powers stemming from Part II - that is to say section 14 - of the Military Lands Act 1892.

These appeals have all been heard together for convenience.

The facts relied upon by the Crown were not disputed. Both appellants accepted the evidence of police officers that on 24th February 1996, five days after the bylaws came into operation, they entered the applicable area - as the bylaws call it - at Menwith Hill and they failed to leave as soon as reasonably practicable, in accordance with the directions of a Ministry of Defence police officer; and Mrs. Lee accepted that on 9th and 23rd June 1996 she had again, on both occasions, entered the applicable area.

Once that evidence is factually made out, the offences charged are effectively made out, subject to the one qualification (indeed the sole effective ground of appeal in this case); that is, the validity of the bylaws themselves. The appellants contend that these bylaws are invalid. They say that they were made in bad faith or an abuse of power, and, finally, counsel for one of the appellants submits that section 14 gives no power to make bylaws for the purpose that these bylaws were actually made.

Section 14 (1) of the Military Lands Act 1982 reads - "Where any land belonging to a Secretary of State is for the time being appropriated by or with the consent of a Secretary of State for any military purpose, a Secretary of State may make bylaws for regulating the use of the land for the purposes to which it is appropriated, and for securing the public against danger arising from that use, with power to prohibit all intrusion on the land and all obstruction of the use thereof."

Well, originally this act applied to the Army and the Navy (there was no Air Force in those days) but later regulations extended the Act to the Air Force (before it was the Royal Air Force) and later still to Visiting Forces. That was done by the Visiting Forces and International Headquarters Application of Law Order 1965, Statutory Instrument 1536 of 1965. Visiting Forces under that order means - "a Visiting Force to which the order applies" - and all that happens then is that a long list of countries is specified, including Uganda, Gambia, and many others, but including the United States. Otherwise no definition of what "Visiting Force" means appears.

Section 17 (2) of the Military Lands Act 1892 then goes on to provide, in effect, the offence of breach of-any bylaws made under section 14. It provides for the penalties and for enforcement.

"Military purposes" is defined in section 23 of the Military Lands Act. It includes rifle or artillery practice, building and enlargement of barracks and camps, the erection of butts, targets, batteries and other accommodation, storing of arms, military drill and any other purpose connected with military matters, approved by the Secretary of State. When the section was extended to the Air Force a similar definition, ending up with, "Any other purpose connected with Air Force matters, approved by the President of the Air Force Council" appears.

Now the bylaws themselves (1996, No. 105 Statutory Instrument) are simply headed, "Defence. RAF Menwith Hill Bylaws, 1996," and the dates are given. They do not specify whether they are being applied to land being used for military purposes, for Air Force purposes or for Visiting Forces, but when one looks to the interpretation Regulation, Regulation 3, that does tread where perhaps the title feared to tread. It sets out meanings, which in most instances involve references to Visiting Forces. The bylaws themselves in Regulation 3 supply a definition of Visiting Forces. That, as I pointed out, was missing from the 1965 Regulations that applied to the Military Lands Act, but in these bylaws there is a definition. "Visiting Force means any body, contingent or detachment of the Forces of a country for the time being present in the United Kingdom on the invitation of Her Majesty's Government and the civilian component of that Force." So that in January 1996, when the bylaws were made, it is clear that those who drafted them contemplated the use of "RAF Menwith Hill," as the land was described for the first time in these Regulations (or certainly at that time it became known as RAF Menwith Hill), but the maker of the bylaws contemplated the use of the area by visiting Military Forces, together with a civilian component.

Well, it seems to this Court that it is the words, "for any military purpose," in section 14 which govern everything else really which follows in the argument in this case.

If this land belonged to the Secretary of State, (well, it did - it was Crown land) if it was appropriated for any military purpose, then, basically, the Secretary of State was entitled to make some bylaws, anyway, whether the military persons concerned were American or British or Ugandan.

The definition of "military purposes" in the end comes full circle back to-the definition in section 14, ending up with, "Any purpose connected with military matters, approved by the Secretary of State."

When one sets out the legislation, the issue or issues between the two sides are clear enough.

The Crown say that this was a military base, nominally an RAF establishment, but effectively under the command of a U.S. Army Colonel, who commanded a mixed personnel of military (American servicemen, that is) and United States civilians, employed by the United States Department of Defense, and the Crown say they were and are engaged in secret intelligence gathering. It is common ground that this is being done by means of some form of electronic or scientific eavesdropping on many forms of communication, both international (that is to say, between countries) and indeed it seems that there is a capability for listening into short distance terrestrial communications both in this country and in many other countries, in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, all of it for the purpose of abstracting information useful to the military in both the United States of America and the United Kingdom. And so, say the Crown, this land was being used by Visiting Forces for military purposes and the bylaws are therefore sound.

The appellants say that all of this is a dishonest sham. They say that this is not a Royal Air Force base at all. They say that it is not a Visiting Forces military base. The appellants contend that it is a spy base. The appellants say that various spokespersons from the Government in previous years, amongst them, they say, the Secretary of State shortly before these bylaws were made, and, they say, the Secretary of State at the time or shortly after the bylaws were made; all of them - the appellants say - have failed to give honest answers to political questions about the nature and use of this site. And, they go further. They say that some of the replies that have been given (in particular they point to a letter in January 1996 by Nicholas Soames, the then Minister responsible) and the appellants say that these replies were positively dishonest. All of this, the appellants say, was because, in reality, the site was and is in use by the United States National Security Agency, not for military purposes - the N.S.A., say the appellants, is not a military agency but a civilian body - and they allege that this base is not being used, in substance, for military purposes but for commercial spying purposes; at times, the appellants claim, hostile to the interests of the United Kingdom; and the appellants claim that, irrespective of whose benefit is intended by these activities, the spying that is going on is, in many respects, illegal under British, European and International law, and, taken altogether, the appellants argue that the Ministers and the Secretary of State for the Defence must have known that the Parliamentary answers, both written and verbal, were dishonest, must have known that Menwith Hill was in no genuine way a military base and that, effectively, the Secretary of State has connived at dressing up the entire situation for the purpose of making bylaws, under the Military Lands Act, when he must have known, say the appellants, that that was fundamentally dishonest, that this was not a military base; in other words, they say the Secretary of State was acting in bad faith, mala fides, and they say this has been done in order to avoid having to seek new legislative powers that would allow what they (the appellants) regard as this disreputable activity to be conducted on British soil with the intention of preventing any public debate in Parliament about modern spying methods.

Well, those are the contentions of the two sides and it falls to this Court to make some findings of fact, which has not been easy.

Whichever side is correct in its contentions, it is clear that those who really know at firsthand what is going on inside this establishment would inevitably refuse to say anything about it. They would claim Public Interest Immunity and they would succeed in the claim.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the arguments in this case, the activities at Menwith Hill do involve, in some measure, anyway, military secrets of a sensitive nature. All of the people directly concerned in it are, if they are British, bound by the British Official Secrets Act; and, if American, no doubt bound by similar legislation there. Hence the problem, which the appellants do not seem to appreciate, of getting anybody to come to this Court to actually say what is going on.

Astonishingly, some employees of British Telecom actually offered to give evidence about British Telecom's links with this site and voluntarily disclosed a certain amount of probably out of date information, which they no doubt thought was no longer of any value, in security terms, but this Court then prevented any more disclosure by employees of British Telecom, having been asked to do so on behalf of that firm, on the basis that if the British Telecom employee who had come here ostensibly to give evidence were exposed to questioning, in no time he would be on to areas for which he would have to plead the Official Secrets Act.

Witness summonses at various times have been served on a considerable number of people, from John Major downwards, to Mr. Portillo the Secretary of State, who signed the bylaws, and to Squadron Leader Sumner, who is the Commanding Officer, or the senior Royal Air Force officer, at RAF Menwith Hill. Those witness summonses were set aside by Mr. Justice Tucker some time earlier, although attempts were made to revive those; the position being that the appellants are insistent that they should be allowed to have anybody who knows anything about Menwith Hill to be brought to this Court compulsorily so that the truth can be dragged out of them; and they say that anyone who prevents this (including myself, according to one appellant) is therefore dishonest, biased, unfair and disgraceful. For people who have no qualms about taking direct action and breaking the law when it suits them, the appellants have curiously high expectations of what the law ought to be doing for them.

Inevitably, the appellants' contentions have been based therefore on a mixture of hearsay, newspaper reports, Hansard reports and a large volume of documents which came from the United States base at Menwith Hill. Almost incredibly the U.S. Military at Menwith Hill, or whoever it is, left in an insecure building, where the appellants and others were able to filch them, large quantities of documents, which I expect they would rather not have had made public; but the appellants, or others - friends of theirs - were able to get in, filch these papers, so as to be able to copy them before returning them as secretly as they had been taken, and so a good deal of indirect material has been placed before this Court.

It was collated and used as the basis for a lengthy report by a Mr. Duncan Campbell, who is an expert on communications and security, and was called as a witness by one of the appellants; and, as I say, his evidence took the form of a lengthy report, in writing, and thereafter he was asked a great many questions and explained and commented upon his report at some length.

With his report, Mr. Campbell produced a bundle of documents, to which he referred, and many of those documents do form part of the basis for his report, and it is clear that it basically is his report, Mr. Campbell's report, which we have to take as the backbone of the appellants' case.

Mr. Anthony Wedgewood Benn gave evidence about the workings of the Cabinet and of Ministers in the making of bylaws, and, to a limited extent, about the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, although one suspects that inevitably Mr. Benn's knowledge of this is slightly out of date, since he left office in 1979.

Mrs. Lee gave evidence at some length. She produced a great many documents, some of them not in Mr. Campbell's bundle; and she certainly provided a valuable amount of background information as to the day-to-day appearance and running of surface matters, at least, at Menwith Hill.

In the end, though, this Court does not feel that she was able to add anything much of significance to what appears in Mr. Campbell's report.

And it follows that the appellants' case or cases suffer from a lack of hard firsthand evidence to show what really is going on inside Menwith Hill, and, whilst we have some sympathy with the appellants over that, the appellants ought never to have been under the delusion that anybody from the inside either would or could be made to come and describe in public what is happening within this secret base.

But, within the limitations of what we have heard, the Magistrates and I think that we do have a reasonable picture of what is the probable position. We think we have enough material on which to base, at any rate, some conclusions of fact, and, for this purpose, of course, we have taken this as a balance of probability exercise.

Menwith Hill is, in our view, not now and never was, in reality, an RAF base. It operated for many years before 1996, quite openly, as a United States base, with bylaws, made under the same section 14 of the same Military Lands Act. Those earlier bylaws fell as a result of the case of Bugg v. Director of Public Prosecutions, (1993) Q.B. page 473 (in principle, because they did not properly define the area involved).

There then followed what appears to have been a happy three years, or so. Happy, that is, for the "peace women," who had been campaigning already for some time before the case of Bugg, campaigning against the United States' presence at Menwith Hill. There were not then - are not now - secure fences around the perimeter of this land. As the map, annexed to the bylaws, shows, the great bulk of the land is farming land, apparently used for grazing livestock or running sheep by neighbouring farmers, and for three years or so the self-style peace women simply climbed the low sheep fence or dry stone wall; none of them, apparently, fences designed to keep people out; designed only to keep animals in; or they simply used the gates, which are still there for farmers, or natural openings in the perimeter and they walked about in the applicable area, as they chose, until they would from time to time meet a Ministry of Defence police officer, who would say, "Good morning, Mrs. Lee. Here we are again. Will you please come with me and leave the land," and they would be politely escorted off the premises. During those three years, they were, of course, civil trespassers and knew it. Eventually, I think civil junctions have been granted against some people, but, of course, they were committing no crime and they could not be arrested simply for walking about on this land.

In January 1996, at the same time as the bylaws, the subject of this appeal, were being made, the place was designated Royal Air Force, Menwith Hill, and a Squadron Leader Sumner was sent to command it. The evidence is that he does not seem to have any airmen under his command, or, if he has, the Ministry of Defence police never saw them.

We are told that the same fiction has been routinely applied to other United States bases in this country. It makes sense, no doubt, to have local British police to enforce any British law on the base, including bylaws, and the kind at issue in this case.

But why the need to call the place an RAF station at all is something of a puzzle. It does not appear to have fooled anyone at all. It was unnecessary, in terms of making these bylaws. The previous bylaws dealt simply with the U.S. Air Force base, I think. What it has done is to expose the Defence Ministry to charges of hypocrisy. Perhaps there was some sensible explanation; we do not know. But, in law, it seems to this Court that it is largely irrelevant to the main issue. What is in a name? What matters and what concerns us are the purposes for which the land was used.

Now, secondly, this base was and is staffed largely by United States citizens. The evidence is that the British subjects, or British citizens, who work at the base are, in the main, ancillary workers doing cleaning and other service type jobs.

As to whether the United States employees are uniformed members of the United States Armed Forces or civilian employees of the U.S. National Security Agency, or any other United States Civilian Agency, we have no firm evidence. The place is nominally commanded by a U.S. Army Colonel, and we are satisfied, as a matter of fact, that there is at least a substantial Armed Forces presence there; beyond that, it is impossible for this Court to tell.

Thirdly, the operational control of the activities at this base. That is said by Mr. Campbell to be entirely controlled by the National Security Agency of the United States rather than the United States Army or Air Force, and by that, he says, "This is under civilian control, not military."

Mrs. Lee produced a record of a subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives in order to show that this base was in fact funded, paid for (the buildings) were being paid for by the United States of America. But that subcommittee was the military subcommittee of the House of Representatives; the base is described as a Defence Agency, outside the United States of American, and so it is clear that the United States legislature treats this base as a military one, whether or not it is operated by a civilian agency. Oddly enough, we have been told that the United Kingdom Government treat the British equivalents, G.C.H.Q., at Cheltenham, and its satellites, as civilian bases, subject to Foreign Office control, and again it seems to us in the end that the labels attached to these bases are less important than their actual functions.

Fourthly; the arguments about dishonesty and replies to Parliament and other people. The appellants contend that Ministers who have been questioned both in and out of Parliament about Menwith Hill have habitually lied about it.

There is a letter, signed by Nicholas Soames, dated I think 30th January 1996, which contains all of the criticized passages. They clearly come from some Civil Service briefing because they appear verbatim in replies at different times from different spokespeople, and it is that letter which we shall take as representative of all of these complaints.

Basically, we have heard no evidence to persuade us that anything in that letter was dishonest.

The British Government may not know or may not have access to every individual message being intercepted or relayed, through Menwith Hill, but, in broad terms, there is no reason to disbelieve the assertion that the United Kingdom Government has full knowledge of what is going on at Menwith Hill. For all we know, the British Intelligence Services can and do tap into any individual area or individual message that they choose.

Mr. Benn is no doubt correct. in saying that many British Ministers are the elected ignorant and that they would not be fully briefed on visits to Menwith Hill; as the Intelligence Services of both countries, says Mr. Benn, do not trust the elected politicians, and, to that extent, part of this letter may well be described as misleading.

The letter goes on to say that senior United Kingdom personnel are present at the station, integrated at every level. Now, Mr. Campbell asserts that this is not true and he points to a United States document, filched by the peace women, that is plainly a command structure; and Mr. Campbell says, "There you are. There are only two British personnel on this command structure." It is right that there are only two British officers on it. One is at the very top of the operation side; the other is at the bottom of the administration side. But, for all we know, there may be other British observers in place, who would not appear in the command structure at all. So there is no hard evidence that that statement is in fact untrue.

"We are aware of all facets of operations," says the letter. That has also been attacked as untrue. well, of course, that depends entirely upon the meaning that the reader attaches to the word "facets." If it is taken in its broadest sense, there is simply no support for the assertion that that statement is untrue.

The final sentence of that letter has been particularly attacked. Mr. Campbell insists that activity hostile to the United Kingdom has gone on and that the Ministers at the time must have known it, and he cited two examples. For one, as support, he cites what an ex-employee of the US Department of Defense had told him, and, for the other, he sites a Baltimore newspaper. One of these claims relates to the sales of Tornado Aircraft to Saudi Arabia, which it seems dried up after the Gulf War (in which perhaps, coincidentally, Tornados suffered such bad losses that they had to be withdrawn). The other claim related to the European Airbus.

In evidential terms, neither of these charges could remotely be said to have been proved, even on a balance of probability. They remain assertions by Mr. Campbell. They may be true or not, but they certainly have not been proved.

In any event, neither of the hearsay sources that Mr. Campbell produced alleged that it was information from Menwith Hill which had been misused. It was simply information in the possession of the United States National Security Agency, and it seems to us that the suggestion that Ministers in 1995 or 1996 must have known that British business interests had been harmed by the United States activities at Menwith Hill is wholly unproven. There is no evidence to support that assertion.

Mr. Benn told us that the United States Government would misuse commercial information if they thought it served their interests, but he did not give any concrete example that involved Menwith Hill, and we do not accept the assertion that any of the Ministers who uttered or signed these statements were doing so dishonestly. If there was - and some would say that undoubtedly there was - an element of fobbing off or being economical with the truth in these replies, that inevitably will have come from the Civil Service briefing of these Ministers, and surely nobody could realistically expect anything other than fobbing off statements. Even in an open democracy, there have to be some State secrets, and the Menwith Hill establishment, on any view of what is happening, certainly was, at least until the peace women got at it, treated by the British Government as a most sensitive area.

Fifthly, the likelihood appears to be that the United States Government could misuse material gathered at Menwith Hill in a way which would damage the United Kingdom. But this Court thinks that, equally, British Intelligence could misuse material that came into its hands in a way which would damage the United States. It is plain that the Intelligence Services of the two countries are deeply intertwined. Mr. Benn says that we have simply sold out and the United States Government now controls the whole of our secret intelligence and gives out only what they allow us to have, and, in effect, gives us nuclear weapons in return.

Well, for all this Court knows, Mr. Benn may basically be right, but the trouble is that Mr. Benn's firsthand knowledge of any of these matters is now of some considerable age, to such an extent that nobody worries any more about what he says in public. Mr. Benn apparently refused, when he was a Minister, to sign the official Secrets Act (or so one of his diary entries appeared to say) so it does make it unlikely that he ever was told what was really going on.

This Court has no means of knowing what arrangements exist between the United States and the United Kingdom Intelligence Services and we have no means of finding out. We could allow the appellants to take out witness summonses endlessly and to shower them around London, Washington, Cheltenham, or anywhere else, like confetti, but the recipients still would not tell us.

All that we are able to say is that there is some form of pooling of intelligence in a matter which inevitably involves mutual trust.

Commonsense dictates that the United States Government would take all possible steps to avoid misuse of material gathered in Britain, at least to prevent its misuse in a way which could damage British interests, because the scandal which might follow if anything of the kind were to be found out would clearly endanger the whole intelligence setup between the two countries and would endanger the friendly relations between the two countries.

Sixthly, Mr. Campbell claims that half of Menwith Hill's activities are targeted at commercial secrets, not military ones. Mr. Benn did not go so far. He says that a great deal of commercially valuable information comes as a by-product of the military surveillance and that this aspect of intelligence work is increasing rapidly.

On the evidence that we have heard it is impossible to draw a line between the two activities. The supply of all manner of apparently innocent commodities may have crucial importance, in a military context. The smallest thing may indicate the manufacture of lethal weapons, poison gas, biological activities. The most innocent sounding messages may to somebody who knows what it means, indicate imminent movements of armies or weaponry.

Equally, it is clear that in combing millions of messages for indications of military value, there will sometimes emerge information of commercial value. As to what proportion of the activities at Menwith Hill are targeted at military and what at commercial messages it is entirely impossible for this Court to tell. Nobody would tell us. All we can say is that we have heard no evidence to support the assertions that Menwith Hill activities are in fact being targeted deliberately, at commercial activities, for motives unconnected with defence and security. It could be happening, but we are satisfied that it is most unlikely that the United States Government is knowingly allowing Menwith Hill to be used for what amounts to commercial espionage, hostile to this country.

Next, the appellants have asserted that wholesale illegality is going on at Menwith Hill. We have been told that it is run by drug traffickers (meaning the United States Government) that it is causing mass unemployment and domestic violence. As I understand it, the reasoning is that the United States Government is spending billions of dollars on defence (or, rather, the peace women would say aggression) and that they should be spending that money on the relief of starvation in third world countries, and that, lacking this support, women and children are dying throughout the world; ergo the United States Government have murdered them.

Well, there is no evidence before this Court to establish any illegality of that kind going on at Menwith Hill.

It is said that wholesale breaches of the Interception of Communications Act 1985 and of the European Convention of Human Rights must be going on. The billions perhaps of telephone conversations in this country and abroad are, it is said, being intercepted and the Secretary of State has no power to issue warrants for such activities to foreigners.

Well, on the face it of, it rather looks as though Mrs. Baird may be right in this contention, at least in the case of the Interception of Communications Act 1985, though it becomes much more arguable in relation to the European Convention.

There can, of course, be no prosecution without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Presumably the Government has come to some agreement with the United States Government and with our own Intelligence Services in relation to interception of communication. There could, of course, be argument about precisely when interception takes place. It may be, for all we know, that the British Government would provide a legal justification were they asked, but, as a matter of law, the fact that some sort of illegality may be going on at a military base is not our concern. An illegality of some kind is doubtless going on in every military establishment in England, and everybody must know that, but it does not invalidate laws governing the places.

In the final analysis, there are only two questions, crucial issues of fact, which I think really require our decision. Firstly, was this land being used for military purposes, and, secondly, was Mr. Portillo, or behind him, the cabinet, acting in bad faith, dishonestly, when this bylaw was signed?

Well, the second question - I will take that first - was answered very clearly by Mr. Benn himself, called by one of the appellants. He told us that the law officers of the Crown will have advised the Secretary of State that this was the appropriate set of bylaws to make, that it was the correct legal way to deal with the problem of persistent trespassers at Menwith Hill, and that the Secretary of State, no doubt without giving it another thought, would have signed it. Mr. Benn says that it would in any case have been a collective Cabinet decision to introduce these bylaws.

I am not sure that Mr. Benn was ever asked point-blank the question, "Do you think Mr. Portillo was acting dishonestly, in bad faith, when he signed it?" It was absolutely clear that Mr. Benn regarded such a notion as absurd. To Mr. Benn, the only question was, "Had they got the law right?" because, if they had not, the making of the bylaws was open to attack on judicial review.

We are satisfied that there is no ground for suggesting that Mr. Portillo, or anybody else concerned with imposing these bylaws, was acting with deliberate dishonesty and bad faith.

The other question, "Was this land being used for military purposes?" needs a qualified answer. A large area -of land, very roughly a mile or more square, was declared in the bylaws to be the applicable area. The vast bulk of it was and is simple farmland, still in use for farming. The areas occupied by the United States, either military or civilian personnel, at the time that the map was drawn, were confined to the northern part of the area, largely to the northeastern quarter. On the evidence before us, 70 per cent or more of the land was not being used for anything but farming purposes. It may be that the operational area has expanded in the last 18 months, but it cannot have expanded very far. In principle, such a distinction between the two parts still exists.

Insofar as the operational, the occupied part of the area, is concerned, we have no hesitation in finding that it was being used for military purposes.

The appellants insist that spying, which is their view of what is going on, is not a military activity but a disreputable interference with the liberty of everybody in this country.

Well, it is true that the history of spying or intelligence gathering and interpretation has not always been an honourable one, but, if these ladies would only read some history, they would begin to realize that intelligence work has always been intimately bound up with matters of State security, both external and internal, and those inevitably mean situations in which, in the end, men in some sort of uniforms are going to be trying to kill each other.

At the time of Elizabeth the First, the Government Intelligence Services were concerned with the threat of foreign invasion, Scottish and Spanish at that time, then designed to supplant the Queen with her nearest heir, Mary Queen of Scots, with the object of reinstating the Pope as Head of the Church of England. Most of the work, of course, was spying on people in England, but, in the broad sense, all intelligence work at that time was for military purposes.

Again, during the Commonwealth, Government Intelligence Services, connected to an efficient Navy, prevented the restoration of the Monarchy, at least until the protector was dead. Again, there was spying, much of it inside this country, but its ultimate purpose was military.

And the same applied, of course, during the 18th century, when there were two armed rebellions in the Jacobite cause.

During the l9th century this country seems to have forgotten about military intelligence, with dire results in the Crimea and South Africa. It may be that oppressive Government spying on the continent of Europe during that period gave spying such a bad name that in this country people developed a sort of pride in being a free country that did not stoop to activities of that kind.

But with the advent of wireless during the First World War the first forerunners of the sigint activity, of which these ladies complain, did do their best to intercept German wireless traffic, without a great deal of success, as during the First World War it seems that our Generals took little notice of what they had to say.

When it comes to the Second World War it is now absolutely plain that only Signals Intelligence, coupled with massive financial material and military help from the United States of America, prevented this country from becoming another satellite State of the Third Reich. The battle of the Atlantic would have been lost. We would have been starved into submission but for the sigint work done, mainly by civilians, at Bletchley Park, and it is a sobering thought that if it was not for our own spies intercepting and cracking German radio messages to and from u-boats, that none of us would be here at all. There would be no courts, as we know them, no legal aid to support an appeal concerning the right to walk on Government land. These appellants would not be facing small fines, with the option of going to prison for a few days rather than pay then. They would have ended up in labour camps, dying of starvation or being gassed or shot.

So sigint or spying, whatever one likes to call it, may seem disreputable, but, without question, it saved us during the early 1940s.

No doubt, Menwith Hill now is looking for signs of aggression in the Middle East and North Africa. In another few years, many countries in that area, who are known to be hostile to this country and the United States, will have rockets capable of hitting this country and will no doubt have nuclear or biological or other unpleasant weapons to put on them, and this Court is of the view that intercepting communications in order to forestall such a happening is a military activity and cannot simply be written-off as spying.

Also it would not surprise me if our own Intelligence Services are not trying to find out whatever clues may exist to the intentions of armed Irish Nationalists should the present cease-fire break down, and it matters not whether it is right that our troops should be in Ireland or whether they should be brought home. In the end it is our young men in Army uniform who will get blown up or shot in the back; and spying by sigint, or any other means, in an attempt to prevent that is being done for a military purpose.

And, we find, as fact, that the primary purpose of the activity on the occupied part of this site is military, so as to bring the land, that land, anyway, within section 14 of the Military Lands Act. So, insofar as any part of this applicable area is appropriated for military purposes, bylaws under the 1892 Act would be valid.

But the point has been taken at a very late stage that the only part of this land that is appropriated for military purposes is the area in the top or northeastern part of the applicable area and that well in excess of half of the land in that area is not being used for military purposes at all; and Mrs. Baird submits that all bylaws, under section 14, must effectively be aimed at protecting the public from physical danger from military activities. I am satisfied that, as a matter of law, that is not so. The word "and" in the middle of section 14(1) follows a comma and could therefore be read as "or," and the two parts on either side of the comma are, in effect, disjunctive. Either of them could stand alone.

The second half can be dealt with shortly, and the words are - "For securing the public against danger, arising -from - it has to be - military use." That must, in my view, be aimed at physical danger, due to actual military activity, either from present military activities going on, on the land, such as cavalry manoeuvres - this statute was 1892 - or from previous military use, such as unexploded shells left behind on firing ranges that are only intermittently used.

There is no evidence of any danger to the public on this whole site. Quite the contrary, United States citizens, women and children, are actually living in the middle of it, and there is, therefore, every indication that nothing that is happening there could possibly endanger members of the public, so that no bylaws could validly be made under that part of section 14(1), and so we have to turn to the first half, which reads - "For regulating the use of the land for the purpose for which it is appropriated."

Well, the list of activities specified in the definition section for military purposes does include things like barracks and stores, and so is clear, in my view, that bylaws can validly be made to regulate the entry of the public or to prohibit it altogether in places like barracks or stores, or any other military premises, where the presence of the public might interfere with the efficient running of military activities. Nothing to do with danger to the public, but a nuisance to the military activities.

Thus, it is possible, in my view, for bylaws to be made, saying that there are to be no civilians in a barrack area, unless authorized in writing (or not) at the guardroom, at the entrance. It is possible to make bylaws prohibiting unauthorized entry to airfields or naval bases because in parts of places like that there are sensitive areas which the Services do not want exposing to close inspection.

But establishments of that nature normally have well-defined boundaries, usually with secure perimeter walling or fencing. Those are boundaries which may, indeed, often do, include areas of dead ground, maybe even with sheep on them, but are boundaries that are intended simply to enclose the area of military activity and not to enclose any significant areas that never have any military value or activity at all. Sometimes it may be that a larger area is being taken in, for example, to avoid direct surveillance by prying eyes with binoculars, or because the military activities could be hindered by interference, by radio, or some other scientific means if ill-disposed people get too close, and so there may often be areas of land surrounding a military base which can properly be made subject to bylaws under this section by way of regulating the use of the land for the military purposes that are going on at the centre of it.

But, on the face of the map, annexed to these bylaws, no such argument can possibly be put forward. Any ill-disposed person can get close up to the military part of this applicable area on the public highway.

Were there any fear of visual spying or of some sort of electromagnetic or scientific interference with the activities at Menwith Hill, the siting of what is happening would never have been where it is - close up to where the public do have unlimited access.

Furthermore, if there were real fears of that nature, one might have expected a secure perimeter fence to have been put up. That no doubt would have been expensive (and these self-style peace women have shown in the past that they believe that they are morally entitled to prevent the erection of fencing by sabotaging the fence erector's machinery; and that once the fences are up, they will simply attack them and pull them down) so that it is perhaps not surprising that the United States authorities have not gone to the expense of putting a serious perimeter fence up.

But, I have come to the conclusion, as a matter of law, that these bylaws are only valid if they take as the applicable area that area which can properly be said to have been appropriated for military purposes.

The boundary could, of course, be generously drawn so as to include some land not in military use, so long as it can be properly said that it is intended to be a convenient perimeter around the military use area; and that, unhappily, cannot be said here. A large area of farmland, that so far as can be seen has no military use, has been added on. It is speculation, of course, but it looks as if the Government acquired a large block of land and handed it all over to the United States authorities, notwithstanding that those authorities only at the time required a minor part of it; and it may be that it was contemplated that in future more of this land may be taken in for military purposes.

Well, it is the opinion of this Court that if that were the position, as it seems likely to be, the bylaws should have been framed to cover only the area in military use for the time being and further extensions would mean amendments to enlarge the perimeter.