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if one has a classified file in MI5 (covert operation by MI5 against an individual is usually classified) and its disclosure and it's content is crucial to a very serious criminal trial, is a high court injunction the appropriate application (against home Secretary or MI5 )or not and if not then what is the best course of action. any input will be much appreciated

Usual tests apply. Simple witness summons?

Can you demonstrate first that the evidence exists, is cogent and relevant. Saying 'They must have' need not be enough.

They are holders of relevant evidence as much as anyone else, but they will also be far more used to applying for exemptions and if necessary supplying certificates that it should not be supplied.

See also the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which will prevent absolutely production of any products of cover surveillance.

This sounds like the kind of situation in which disclosure might be prevented by a Public Interest Immunity certificate.

fh and dls, thank you very much indeed for sound advice but what if the government has been abusing their position and been involved in direct criminal activity then what happens then.
also what you mean by witness statement to who it should be served home secretary or investigatory tribunal.

I don't know the specifics but I doubt very much that you can serve a Witness Summons upon the tribunal. As fh says, expect the Home Secretary to sign a PII certificate.

Are you bringing the criminal case? If so, expect the CPS to take it over and discontinue it.

thanks smou, let me say a little more about the case. we believe that a policeman was set up in a covert operation in which mi5 was in overall charge the policeman was prosecuted and was found gulity but he had no idea who was behind it. if the policeman now realise what was going on, how he has to go about it to obtain more information and utimately prosecution against all those responsible.
does he has to go to investigatory tribunal, or serve injunction or what exactly, if you can step by step many thanks

You believe, or you have evidence? The two are very different.

It is highly unlikely that you will be able to obtain evidence against MI5. Even if they wre involved, it would be a matter of national security and the Home Secretary would sign a PII certificate as a matter of course.

I'm sorry;, but the best approach I can see is to put it behind you and carry on - but I know that's not what you wanted to hear.

We have no idea what you want, or why.

if it is to do with your other query, you have only a very slightly better chance her (than absolute zero that is)

If you want documents, the general procedure is that you ask the court to serve a summons requiring the person with custody of them to attend bringing the documents with them. Before Latin was banned, it was called a sub poena ad duces tecum. The request for the order was addressed to the court to which you wanted the documents brought:
if the documents are the products of interceptions, then the law prohibits their production.
As fh says, a public interest immunity certificate might also be heading your way - though it might not

You will need a lot more than you have.

dlsthank you very much indeed. we have evidence and not hearsay. one thing pne must bear in mind that in English law the crown can not prosecute someone in a covert operation (assuming the crown discloses it or the person alleges it) but in America they can. what that person has do i suppose to allege that that crown carried out a covert operation therefore the prosecution was unlawful and hence the conviction was unlawful,

It is not clear what you mean.

The use of covert surveillance is not a bar to a prosecution, but it is only that the products of a covert interception cannot be used in evidence.

sorry dls what i meant is this , in usa fbi can set people and trap and prosecute (lets say buying drugs or prohibited materials guns, weapons etc) but in UK police or security are not allowed to lay trap and then prosecute.

Sorry, but it is the other way around. Much more is allowed here than in the US.

The nearest you get is Looseley:

Regina -v- Looseley; Attorney General's Reference No 3 of 2000 - HL - 25-Oct-01 - Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead Lord Mackay of Clashfern Lord Hoffmann Lord Hutton Lord Scott of Foscote - Criminal Practice - Police
It was an abuse of process for the police to go so far as to incite a crime. "The stay is sometimes said to be on the ground that the proceedings are an abuse of process, but Lord Griffiths described the jurisdiction more broadly and, I respectfully think, more accurately, as a jurisdiction to prevent abuse of executive power". The distinction is to be made between an undercover officer inciting a person to commit a crime he would not otherwise have committed, and the same officer making available an unexceptional opportunity to commit a crime. Every court had an inherent and fundamental power and duty to prevent abuse of its process. A defendant was excused, not because he was less culpable, but because the police had behaved improperly. There is no appreciable difference between the English law as developed, and Human Rights law.
Lord Nicholls said: "My Lords, every court has an inherent power and duty to prevent abuse of its process. This is a fundamental principle of the rule of law. By recourse to this principle courts ensure that executive agents of the state do not misuse the coercive, law enforcement functions of the courts and thereby oppress citizens of the state. Entrapment, with which these two appeals are concerned, is an instance where such misuse may occur. It is simply not acceptable that the state through its agents should lure its citizens into committing acts forbidden by the law and then seek to prosecute them for doing so. That would be entrapment. That would be a misuse of state power, and an abuse of the process of the courts. The unattractive consequences, frightening and sinister in extreme cases, which state conduct of this nature could have are obvious. The role of the courts is to stand between the state and its citizens and make sure this does not happen."
Cases Cited: Director of Public Prosecutions -v- Marshall 01-Jan-88; Nottingham City Council -v- Amin QBD 02-Dec-99;
[2001] UKHL 53 [2001] 1 WLR 2060 [2001] 4 All ER 897 [2002] 1 Cr App R 29 [2002] UKHRR 333 [2002] HRLR 8 25-Oct-01 House of Lords Link 29-Oct-01 Times 22-Nov-01 Gazette 25-Oct-01 Bailii Link
Case law from lawindexpro

thank you dls i will study and revert to you.