Simply Offensive

For John Key to compare his situation to the News of the World saga or people discussing someone committing suicide is just offensive. His conversation was nothing like that and there is no way he should be allowed to get away with such claims.

He is going to have a very difficult time to get any kind of charge laid and all this press is looking bad for them.

To lay the charge they actually have to prove he did it deliberately not merely left his sound device there by accident. This is because the law could not sensibly allow people to be charged for accidental recordings otherwise you would not for example be allowed to have anything which had people in the background.

On top of that he needs to prove the recording was of a private conversation. He has a big issue here because:

• It was in a public place
• It was between public figures
• It was on topics which are not private and would be unlikely to constitute private facts
• There is a public interest in disclosure

It is clear he is relatively without a leg to stand on in making the complaint to the police so why do it? It was not going to make the release of the information any less likely because we have double jeopardy rules. My guess is he was worried that some of the policy issues coming up in the media would be damaging and they could get them out of the news using this scandal. This may have backfired however as I don't think they would have believed it would reflect this badly upon them.