"Birmingham Six"
I've just finished reading Robert Harris's novel, 'A Gentleman and a Spy", which deals with the Dreyfus case.
Dreyfus was convicted of spying for Germany, but later investigations showed another army officer to be guilty - the fact that the convicted man was Jewish was a major factor in the original verdict.
The French army dug their heels in and refused to re-open the case, allowing the real culprit, Esterhazy, to continue spying on exactly the same principle as Denning's argument, that to admit the injustice would be to lose face - nothing to do with justice or the good of the nation.
Jim Carroll