Gun was outraged by the email, and took a printed copy of it home with her. After contemplating the email over the weekend, Gun gave the email to a friend who was acquainted with journalists. In February, she travelled to London to take part in a demonstration against war with Iraq. Gun heard no more of the email, and had all but forgotten about it until Sunday 2 March, when she saw it reproduced on the front page of "The Observer" newspaper. Less than a week after the "Observer" story, on Wednesday 5 March, Gun confessed to her line manager at GCHQ that she had leaked the email, and was arrested. In a BBC interview with Jeremy Paxman, she said that she had not raised the matter with staff counsellors as she "honestly didn't think that would have had any practical effect." Gun spent a night in police custody, and eight months later was charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act. While waiting to hear whether she would be charged, Gun later embarked on a postgraduate degree course in global ethics at Birmingham University.