Section 79...
"Criminal liability of directors etc"...
"Where an offence under any provision of this Act... is committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of a director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he (as well as the body corporate) shall be guilty of that offence and liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly."
To see how Section 79 might work, start with the smaller fry, say Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International...
To avoid criminal proceedings, having not initiated or consented to the Dowler phone hacking won't do as a defence because there are other tests. Let us go to these. Connived? That would require an examination of how Ms Brooks habitually conducted herself as editor. "Connived", for instance, might be warmly congratulating reporters who produced stories that could only have been acquired illegally. But perhaps there was no connivance. Even so, Ms Brooks would not be home safe and dry. "Where an offence is... attributable to any neglect", states the Act.
This is the catch-all section of the Act. If you have presided over an organisation that has conducted criminal activities, either you gave the orders, or you gave permission, or you connived, but
if you did none of these things, then you were neglectful. That is the trap, that is the box in which the directors of News International will find themselves. It is also the bit that Ms Brooks would find hard to understand. For, as she indicated earlier this week, she isn't going to resign."I am aware of the speculation about my position. Therefore it is important you all know that as chief executive, I am determined to lead the company to ensure we do the right thing and resolve these serious issues." This comes straight out of the dishonorable, cowardly, defensive, mind-your-back school of management that says that if I didn't know, I cannot be blamed. It doesn't recognise neglect. Instead it substitutes the self-serving, conceited thesis that "only I, who was at the helm during the disaster, can steer us to safety".