You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today is somewhat reluctantly back in the public eye, 16 years after she was at the centre of a major news

story which changed her life forever. Back in 2003, Catherine Gunn was a young linguist, a fluent Mandarin speaker,

working at the UK's Signals Intelligence Agency, GCHQ. She received an email which detailed a covert

U.S. operation to dig dirt on UN diplomats in the run-up to what was expected to be a crucial

security-counsel vote on the legitimacy of going to war in Iraq. Ms. Gunn was appalled by what she read. She decided to

leak it, and a month later, details of this secret U.S. operation were splashed all over a British

newspaper. Catherine Gunn confessed to being the source of the leak. She was charged under

Britain's Official Secrets Act. But then the British government

mysteriously dropped the case. Now a movie's been made of her story and again her actions are

being scrutinized. Did her whistleblowing defend or weaken Britain's democracy?

Catherine Gunn, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you very much.

You are in the public eye today because of the release of a film which focuses on a fateful decision you took 16 years ago,

and we'll talk about it in some detail.

But I just want to know at the beginning, is this gratifying for you to be back in the public eye or is it uncomfortable?

It's not uncomfortable I wouldn't say it's gratifying either but it's certainly interesting.

The whole reason really behind going forward with the film and, you know, my sort of great depth of

gratitude to Gavin Hood and Jed Doherty, the directors and producers on the film, is that

they stuck to the truth. Most of the time, all the material facts are true in the film.

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