I would certainly wish they didn’t tell me because I would have to report them as they now make you an accessory after the fact.
71. Accessory after the fact—-
(1) An accessory after the fact to an offence is one who, knowing any person to have been a party to the offence, receives, comforts, or assists that person or tampers with or actively suppresses any evidence against him, in order to enable him to escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction.
(2) No married person whose spouse has been a party to an offence shall become an accessory after the fact to that offence by doing any act to which this section applies in order to enable the spouse, or the spouse and any other person who has been a party to the offence, to escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction.
Thats why before anyone asks me if they can tell me a secret I always tell them, sure, so long as it wasn’t a crime they commited because I would have to report it.
The penalty for being an accessory after the fact is hidden away in Section 312 of our Crimes Act 1961. That Section says :
312. Accessory after the fact to crime—- Every one who is accessory after the fact to any crime punishable by imprisonment, being a crime in respect of which no express provision is made by this Act or by some other enactment for the punishment of an accessory after the fact, is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years if the maximum punishment for that crime is imprisonment for life, and not exceeding 5 years if such maximum punishment is imprisonment for 10 or more years; and in any other case is liable to not more than half the maximum punishment to which he would have been liable if he had committed the crime.