Report No. 33

5. Penalties for concealing offences or giving false informations.-

(1) Where a person has committed an arrestable offence, any other person who, knowing or believing that the offence or some other arrestable offence has been committed, and that he has information which might be of material assistance in securing the prosecution or conviction of an offender for it, accept or agrees to accept for not disclosing that information any consideration other than the making good of loss or injury caused by the offence, or the making of reasonable compensation for that loss or injury, shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for not more than two years.

(2) Where a person causes any wasteful employment of the police by knowingly making to any person a false report tending to show that an offence has been committed, or to give rise to apprehension for the safety of any persons or property, or tending to show that he has information material to any police inquiry, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for not more than six months or to a fine of not more than two hundred pounds or to both.

(3) No proceedings shall be instituted for an offence under this section except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

(4) Offences under sub-section (1) above, and incitement to commit them, shall be included in Schedule 1 to the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952 (1952 c. 1955) (indictable offences triable summarily with the consent of the accused) where that Schedule includes, or is under any enactment to be treated as including the arrestable offence to which they relate.

(5) The compounding of an offence other than treason shall not be an offence otherwise than under this section.

12. (6) In this part of this Act references to felony shall not be taken as including treason; but the procedure on trials for treason or misprision of treason shall be the same as the procedure as altered by this Act on trials for murder.