Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. I know he has been campaigning very effectively on increased transparency in the family courts. One of the points the Prime Minister sought to make yesterday is that sometimes special guardianship or other kinship choices will be absolutely right, but there have been cases where special guardianship orders have been granted to grandparents and others who have had limited, and in some cases no, contact beforehand with the child placed in their care, so we do need to keep the system under review.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
T6. Does the Minister agree that specialist courts for crimes with high reoffending rates like drugs and sexual offences can offer a number of benefits if implemented correctly, not only by reducing those reoffending rates but also by more sensitive handling of vulnerable witnesses, which can lead to better evidence and fewer cases collapsing?
Mr Vara
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that specialist courts can lead to a reduction in reoffending. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor recently visited the United States, where there is evidence that reoffending does diminish with specialist courts. We will be taking on board whatever we can learn to put into practice in the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
In the Select Committee on Home Affairs last week, we heard the anti-female genital mutilation campaigner Leyla Hussein describe the death threats and intimidation she and her family, including her 12-year-old daughter, have to endure as the price for her brave stand against this appalling form of child abuse. It is essential that the thousands of hidden victims and witnesses to FGM see how seriously the Government take it and know that if they come forward they will be protected. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that victims and witnesses to FGM are fully protected under the law?
Mike Penning
I am very proud that this Government have changed the law to protect not only the people who have had FGM done to them but those who might have it perpetrated on them. They should be protected in every way possible so that they have the confidence to come forward. That is what we are working on at the moment, and it is an important piece of work. A lot of this nasty abuse is online, and that is just as illegal as if those threats were made face to face.
Immigration Statistics
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Mike Penning
Speaking as someone who was born and brought up in Edmonton in north London, I grew up with some of the early immigrant families and Afro-Caribbean families. Many of them are still my friends. Their fear is unlimited immigration. It is the same in my constituency today. I met my Kashmiri and Pakistani community only last week and they talked to me about that fear. We have to have controlled immigration. If we control it, we will have a safer system for everybody in this country. At the moment, we are left with an uncontrolled system.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
The Prime Minister made it clear this morning that he will introduce the toughest rules in the EU to tackle the abuse of free movement, including stronger powers to deport EU criminals and to prevent them from coming back. Will the Minister explain how those important changes will be achieved?
Mike Penning
They are going to be achieved by having a Conservative Government. The Prime Minister made his speech this morning at the JCB factory rather than here because it was obviously a party political speech. All the reforms that he outlined will create a fair system in which we are in control of immigration and our benefits. That is what we should all be looking forward to.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Diana Johnson
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm when he responds that that is the legal advice he has received. On that basis, it is really important that the issue is addressed.
Finally, if the provisions set out in new clause 7 are introduced, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which is now part of the National Crime Agency, will have more work to do. It already struggles with the images it has to look at, so if it will have to deal with the written word as well. I think that there is a case to be made for the Minister addressing how resources for that will be made available.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their opening remarks. I will speak to new clause 5 and the Government amendments relating to prevention orders. I think that by now colleagues will be familiar with my reasons for tabling the new clause. The vast majority of children in this country grow up free from fear, but a vulnerable minority never know a safe or happy childhood. I will never forget sitting in the Old Bailey and listening to truly harrowing evidence of how a violent organised crime gang systematically groomed girls on Oxford’s streets to sell them for sex from as young as 11, plying them with hard drugs to make them more compliant to being repeatedly raped by strangers and conditioning them to believe that that was what real relationships were like. Too many colleagues in this House have had the same experience as me, as cases have emerged across the country. Every police force and local authority needs to take positive and proactive preventive action to root out this vile crime.
Patterns of grooming behaviour are now much better understood. We should be aiming to disrupt the process before it progresses to systematic sexual abuse, because the consequences of failing to intervene are both well documented and appallingly destructive. However, over the past few years case after case has emerged in which child protection agencies in possession of detailed intelligence have seemed unable to intervene.
In our inquiry into child sexual exploitation, the Home Affairs Committee came to a number of conclusions on why it was happening. The wider conclusions are for another day, but even leading forces, such as Lancashire police, who are proactive not only in innovative investigative techniques, but in disrupting grooming behaviour using methods such as abduction notices, licensing enforcement and dispersal orders, found that a key tool—civil prevention orders—just was not working. They have been on the statute book since 2003, as we have heard, and should be at the forefront of the fight against grooming, but instead they were found to be fundamentally flawed by a 2012 review commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers and written independently by Hugh Davies QC and a team of experts.
Since 2003 our understanding of patterns of sex offending and disruption techniques has progressed significantly. The purpose of new clause 5 is to reflect that progress and resolve the flaws in the existing orders. I welcome the fact that the Government have accepted the case for reform and tabled amendments today. Put simply, the reformed orders will protect more vulnerable children from sexual exploitation. That could not be more urgent, because the Children’s Commissioner estimated only this year that 16,500 children are at risk of sexual exploitation, but the prevention orders are still failing to protect them.
Before explaining how the proposed reforms will address that, let me explain why the current orders are not working. Three orders were legislated for in the Sexual Offences Act 2003: the sexual offences prevention order, the foreign travel order and the risk of sexual harm order. A SOPO can be sought on conviction, or on proof of relevant offending behaviour subsequent to that conviction, to protect a UK adult or child. An FTO can be sought on proof of offending behaviour subsequent to previous sexual conviction and can be sought to protect non-UK children. Despite some misleading coverage of this campaign, the ROSHO is already a pre-conviction order, and it can be sought on proof of two contact offences to prevent serious sexual harm to children under the age of 16. Neither new clause 5 nor the Government’s amendments would create a revolutionary pre-conviction order today. That has been an accepted necessity since 2003.
No one in this House would disagree with the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty, which is a fundamental principle of the rule of law, but in no way would that be compromised by these amendments. The case against a defendant would have to be proved to the criminal standard, and a defendant’s procedural rights under the proposals would be identical to those in place under the current provisions. The fact is that a criminal prosecution is not the only mechanism that is necessary to achieve an acceptable level of protection against the sexual abuse of children.
Criminal prosecution is not always possible. In some situations a prosecution is found not to be in the interests of a child victim, and therefore not in the public interest. In other situations there might be compelling evidence or some technical reason why the evidence is not found to be admissible. In other cases, as we have seen recently, a vulnerable witness might simply find the court process too traumatic and so the case collapses. Anyone who follows the progress of policing and the criminal justice system will recognise that uncomfortable reality. That is why this year there were more than 23,000 reported sexual crimes against children but only 4,051 of them were prosecuted.
Mr Buckland
I pay warm tribute to my hon. Friend for the outstanding work she is doing on this issue. I echo her point about the sometimes sad limitations of the criminal justice system, which I have worked in over many years, including dealing with this type of case. I support her case about the criminal standard of proof needed for obtaining the orders and then, if the order is breached, a further criminal procedure in which the criminal standard of proof would apply, so the necessary balances and safeguards are in place.
Nicola Blackwood
Absolutely. To answer the shadow Minister’s question about whether a civil standard would be appropriate, I think that it is important to ensure that we maintain the balance. The reason it was not possible to achieve ROSHOs previously was the combination of two contact offences plus a standard of serious sexual harm. I do not think that the necessary approach now is to lower that standard of proof.
Some have expressed concern that these orders are intended as an alternative to prosecution, but that is not the case; they are simply a practical necessity alongside prosecution. As a civil order they are no different in nature from other civil orders designed to protect children, such as injunctions or restraining orders in a family court or a barring order in respect of regulated activity.
If we fail to intervene and protect vulnerable people from foreseeable harm, even if prosecution is not possible, we are failing in our duty of care. The current orders are failing. The requirement to prove two contact offences for the ROSHO produces the absurd result that an offender who sexually touched a 15-year-old twice would be eligible for an order but an offender who raped a four-year-old once would not be—the police would have to wait for the offender to do it again. That is not a sensible way to assess risk.
Furthermore, given the existence of a specific form of order to prevent foreign travel, ROSHOs have never been used in practice to protect children abroad. The outcome is that non-UK children enjoy a materially lower level of protection than an equivalent child in the UK. I hope that the House will agree that there is absolutely no defence for that disparity. Today’s proposals put an end to that inequality, which must be welcomed.
There are other basic flaws in the existing regime. Application for all three orders can be made only by the local chief of police, but all too often an offender travels ahead of the evidence between force areas, especially in grooming and trafficking cases. The ROSHO applies only in relation to children up to the age of 16, meaning that 16 to 18-year-olds, who might have been caught up in abuse from a much younger age, can only be protected by a SOPO with a much higher threshold.
Meanwhile, the sexual abuse of children is big business in many destination countries. Hundreds of thousands of children are routinely trafficked for that purpose. Although offenders often have a clear record of offending in different jurisdictions, they can still escape prosecution in each, as many jurisdictions simply fail to prosecute due to different standards of children’s rights or pure corruption. In that context, the FTO threshold for offending behaviour subsequent to a conviction is entirely unworkable. It is unsurprising that since 2005 only 50 FTOs have been granted. In 2007, a year in which 70 British citizens sought consular assistance for child sexual offence arrests, not a single FTO was granted.
New clause 5 applies solely to children because that is the focus of my campaign, and it is intended to remedy these shortcomings: it abolishes the arbitrary requirement to prove two contact offences; it includes UK and foreign children, offering them equal protection; it allows a senior specialist officer from the National Crime Agency to apply for an order to plug the gap of itinerant offenders travelling ahead of the evidence and it raises the age limit to 18; and it introduces an interim provision to prevent itinerant offenders from fleeing the jurisdiction.
Simon Danczuk
I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I am more satisfied than ever that Rochdale council is playing its part in tackling on-street grooming.
It is important to note that we still await the serious case review on Rochdale. I would think that it is imminent, so it should be available in the next month or two. I think it will raise questions—not much light has been cast on this—about the performance of Greater Manchester police and whether it acted effectively enough in terms of intervening. I suspect that the serious case review will show some failings in that regard. That relates to the proposals under discussion because, had they been in place at the time, not only would the tools have been available to the police, but an emphasis would have been placed on their need to use them.
Nicola Blackwood
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), the orders are welcome and will allow police forces to intervene earlier, but they must sit within a wider strategy of prevention and prosecution if we are to have any hope of genuinely tackling child sexual exploitation in the long term.
Simon Danczuk
I completely agree. Much of this is about not just the tools available, but the culture in the local agencies, whether they be the council, the Crown Prosecution Service, the police or the NHS and its primary care services.
Finally, I welcome the proposals. This is Parliament at its best. We are amending existing legislation, not creating something completely new. This is about listening to the concerns of Back Benchers and their campaigns, and about getting cross-party support, which I welcome.
Nicola Blackwood
I welcome the protections that allow defendants to apply for variation and discharge. However, I notice that under the Government amendments, only local chief officers are able to apply for the variation or discharge of an order. I understand that that is intended to maintain the management of the offender at a local level. However, the NCA might come across evidence of different forms of offending and might want to get involved in an application for variation. I hope that the guidance will make it clear how that will work.
Damian Green
That is a valid point. To deal with the practical point, once an order is made, the supervision of it will be in the hands of the local police. It is sensible for them to be on the front line of making any application to vary the order. Obviously, the NCA will make it a habit to work closely with local forces when they are working together in specific areas, as they will be in this case. It should become entirely habitual for the NCA to pass evidence to local forces. I know that the leadership of the NCA is determined to do that. There needs to be better connections between policing at the national and local levels, and we are seeking to address that problem. My hon. Friend should rest assured that she is not the only person who will be watching closely to ensure that that co-operation takes place.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) explained, new clause 7 seeks to extend the offence of possessing a prohibited image of a child in section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. That offence is committed when a person possesses a pornographic non-photographic image of a child that is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise obscene. My hon. Friend, together with the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), wants to extend that offence to include the written word. I add my thanks to the many that have been given this evening to both Members for their personal efforts in the fight to protect children from abuse. Their motivation for the new clause is entirely laudable, and it is quite right for the House to have the opportunity to discuss it.
Written material that describes the sexual abuse of children is undoubtedly distasteful and disturbing. As my hon. Friend said, he and I have had many discussions and meetings on the matter, and I put it to him that criminalising the possession of the written word in any context is a significant step, and we should pause before taking it. In our view, it is a step that should be taken only once we know the full extent of the problem. In this case, there are two particular requirements. First, there must be evidence that possession of such material is causing harm to children. Secondly, it must be practical for the police—in this case CEOP—to go through all the material on people’s computers. It is much more difficult to do that with the written word than with images. As my hon. Friend said, there is special technology that allows speedy checks of images. We are working on improving that technology, but it is more difficult in the case of the written word. If, after considering those caveats, we conclude that there is a case for changing the law, we will need to ensure that we go about it in the right way so that it has some practical effect and improves child protection.
New clause 7 touches on a number of sensitive issues, and any changes that we bring about need to be both proportionate and effective. I cannot commend it to the House today, but I absolutely assure my hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman that we intend to continue considering thoroughly whether the law should be changed in the way that they suggest. As my hon. Friend said, CEOP has already provided some information, and my officials continue to work with it to investigate the issue further and get the full body of evidence that is necessary if we are to take the drastic step suggested. As soon as we reach a conclusion on that, we will decide what action to take. I know that my hon. Friend will continue to play a role in gathering evidence and discussing it with Ministers, but I hope that he will agree not to press new clause 7 to a Division.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon on her commitment and her drive to ensure that we have the necessary powers to protect children from sexual harm. I now know that she and the House agree that the Government amendments will deliver what new clause 5 was intended to achieve, and more, so I commend them to the House.
Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
We support new clauses 15 and 16 and we welcome their inclusion in the Bill, although the Government have dragged their heels on this matter, which should more appropriately have been dealt with in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
I am pleased to have the opportunity, alongside colleagues, to speak in favour of new clauses 12 and 14 on support for vulnerable witnesses. It is welcome to see such important proposals brought forward with support from Members in all parts of the House. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for their work on this. The new clauses would provide for a number of positive support mechanisms for very vulnerable witnesses such as a victim in a case of sexual abuse of a child. These are exceptionally distressing cases, and court proceedings are complex and stressful even for the most able adult. Justice is done when, and only when, victims feel able to come forward and report abuse and to cope with court proceedings.
New clause 12 deals specifically with registered intermediaries and calls for the provision of that support to every child who is in court as a victim of sexual abuse. An intermediary offers support to a vulnerable witness in communicating comfortably with the court throughout the trial. They are also able to assess the victim and advise the court on how best to meet their needs and provide effective but manageable questioning.
New clause 14 would provide for a wider array of improvements to court arrangements, making provision for a specialist court to handle cases involving a very vulnerable witness. The provisions include training for judges; assigning to the witness a single, consistent and familiar court usher; and taking into account the effect of time delays on the witness. It is difficult to overstate the importance of having such sensitive measures in place. It is our duty to ensure that a trial is as accessible and bearable for a victim as it could possibly be. We will support new clauses 12 and 14 should they be put to a vote.
I should also like to speak in support of amendment 1. I commend my right hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) for bringing these matters before the House and I thank Lord Touhig for raising it earlier in another place. The amendment would make no change to the premise of the Government’s proposals on liability for enforcement costs, nor would it introduce any new premise into the law. It would simply replicate a system of basic means-testing that is already in use and that the Government already accept as a reasonable and proportionate method for setting fines. It is right that an offender feels the financial hardship of their given fine and that they are expected to pay on time. The means-testing system is in place as a low-level safety net to ensure that penalties imposed do not jeopardise a basic level of subsistence for vulnerable debtors. The amendment would extend this safeguard, which is already subscribed to in law, to the stage where the Government have added the costs of recovery into the final system. I commend it to the House.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 14, which stands in my name, supported by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and many colleagues. I also express my support for new clause 12.
New clause 14 is designed to introduce specialist courts for very vulnerable victims. It is no secret that I have been deeply affected by a child sexual exploitation case in my constituency, but in addition the Home Affairs Committee inquiry has been hearing about the realities of child sexual exploitation across the country. I am repeatedly told that these girls do not appear to be victims—that they are just bad girls making bad choices and voting with their feet. The process of grooming makes them believe they are complicit in their abuse. Even if they manage to get away, heartbreakingly they too often go back to their abusers, feeling that that is their best option. They simply see no way out. But there are ways out. There is now more support available for victims of sexual abuse, conviction rates are on the up, and prosecutions in Rochdale and Keighley and excellent work in Lancashire show that we are getting our act together.
That is not, however, always the case and it is certainly not the perception. Keir Starmer made it clear just days ago that traditional tests by the Crown Prosecution Service to evaluate witnesses have the potential to leave this category of vulnerable witnesses unprotected. He used the example of the Rochdale witnesses, stating that if they were tested
“solely by asking questions such as whether they reported their abuse swiftly, whether they returned to the perpetrators, whether they had ever told untruths in the past, and whether their accounts were unaffected by drink or drugs, the answers would almost always result in a decision not to prosecute.”
Last year ChildLine received more than 15,000 calls relating to child sexual abuse, yet the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children thinks that more than 60% of child sexual abuse goes unreported, which is unsurprising when witnesses are being told that they are not credible owing to the very behaviours that arise from their abuse. I am delighted that the Director of Public Prosecutions has made it clear that he intends to act on this, but it will be effective only if it is fully supported by the whole system.
Victims, charities, senior police officers and lawyers all confirm that a barrier to victims coming forward is not only the fear of not being believed, but a potentially traumatic court process. A lot has been done, including the introduction of special measures, but certain very vulnerable witnesses face higher credibility barriers and questioning on much more distressing evidence and are inclined to react negatively or aggressively to intimidating situations. These witnesses respond differently and unpredictably in court situations and it is for these victims that new clause 14 is designed.
Much of this cannot be avoided in an adversarial system and I will be the first to defend the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but if a witness is deeply vulnerable because of previous abuse and therefore unable to give clear evidence, understand the questions asked or remember events, that undermines the quality of justice served and is not in the interests of the witness or the defendant.
New clause 14 seeks to assist by proposing that such cases be assigned to a specialist court where everyone, from the ushers to the judges, has specialist training in witness management and the special measures. Those mechanisms would ensure that the measures would be implemented consistently and to the highest standards for such cases, which need to be handled differently owing to the nature of the evidence and the vulnerability of the witnesses.
This is a partnership programme that does not require primary legislation, which is why this is a probing amendment. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the proposed new clause has attracted significant cross-party support, which is why I want him to make a clear commitment to take forward this proposal in a timely manner. I know that he will raise the issue of cost, but I would pre-emptively respond that preventing cases from collapsing is nothing if not a good investment.
In the wake of Savile, the Welsh care homes, Rochdale and ensuing cases of child sexual exploitation, there will be a significant increase in highly sensitive cases in the courts. I want victims to have the confidence to be able to go to court and give evidence. I want them to know that we did everything we could to support the most vulnerable witnesses in the most sensitive cases. It is in the interests of justice for all involved.
Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
That is what this debate is for. MPs, and everyone else, are of course perfectly entitled to make whatever comments they wish about the criminal justice system, which, like every part of the public service, is accountable to Parliament, and ultimately it is Parliament that determines the framework of law by which the whole thing is conducted. It seems to have become rather fashionable nowadays for a running commentary to break out about a series of cases, and I think that we should be more sparing. I also think that anyone who comments on this or any other matter should ensure that they have the full facts before going out and giving a considered opinion, rather than just reacting to something they read over their morning coffee.
Nicola Blackwood
I thank the Lord Chancellor, who is being extremely generous, for giving way. His points about press sensationalism, the separation of powers and not wanting to have a running commentary from politicians are well made. However, I think that the lack of public confidence is not just due to a thirst for punishment beyond reason, because there is also the fact that reoffending rates are high. The point about sentencing is that we want it to be an effective deterrent against reoffending. At the moment, 49% of all prisoners reoffend within a year of release, and for adults released from short-term prison sentences the rate rises to 60%. We have to convince the public that our criminal justice system is effectively deterring prisoners from reoffending, which is not an issue of sensationalism.
Mr Clarke
I could not agree more. In fact, in so far as I have brought anything into policy since taking up my current post, it has to put much greater emphasis on reoffending, which is the biggest weakness of our system, but covering the full range of reforms would be outside the scope of the debate. The system punishes first of all, but it would serve the public better if it also led to the reform of more offenders, so that we could get reoffending rates down to a more respectable level. My colleagues and I are trying to address that in everything that we do in the Department of Justice.
It is relevant to the debate to consider what is most effective in deterring reoffending. Some people have held the belief for years, quite understandably, that in order to cut reoffending we must deter people by sending more and more to prison for longer and longer sentences. My personal opinion is that the evidence completely refutes that view. That approach does not work, particularly if it makes prisons overcrowded and unresponsive places where prisoners toughen up and meet some rough friends before being released to fend for themselves in the outside world. We are making more intelligent use of the prison estate so that, in addition to the punishment of confinement, there is a process of reform based on a working environment that tackles drugs, drink, mental illness and all the other things in order to lead people to behave when they are released.
Mr Slaughter
That would be a good point, if it were true. My colleagues and I visit prisons and young offender institutions around the country, every week and every month, and see excellent education work, and vulnerable and damaged young people gaining skills. We also see YOTs at work.
Nicola Blackwood
“Rehabilitation of Prisoners”, a Home Affairs Committee report from 2004, states that
“47%...of prisoners…spent no time in education and 31%”
spent
“no time in prison work.”
Mr Slaughter
The young lady—the hon. Member—quotes statistics, but she fails to give credit for the steps that were taken and the resources that were put in. I think I had better stop on that point before I say something else I might regret.
As I was saying, the Youth Justice Board and YOTs together ensured that a child-centric approach was embedded in our youth justice system. The Labour Government correctly said that the right way to cut youth offending and the number of young people in the secure estate was to stop them turning to crime in the first place. Labour’s approach was incremental, evidence based and properly resourced.
The Opposition understand that the Lord Chancellor’s reckless promise to lead the austerity charge means 20% cuts to YOTs in one year, but up to 60% cuts to their preventive programmes. We puzzled at the wanton attempt, which was abandoned only at the last hurdle, to abolish the YJB. At least the Government did not seek to abolish the Sentencing Council. I do not know why they did not do so, because it is a recent Labour innovation, and it is transparent and effective, and it gives coherence and yet flexibility to a key area of public policy. I would have thought it was ripe for the chop.
It is worth recollecting the recent history of sentencing policy to see how far we have come in a relatively short time. I do not disagree with the Lord Chancellor on the current operation of the Sentencing Council, but I shall go over its history to show how it developed. Prior to 2004, sentencing guidelines were laid down by the Court of Appeal criminal division in the form of guideline judgments, and beyond that advocates and sentencers were reliant on practitioner texts, primarily Thomas. The texts were effectively sentencing decisions in individual cases accompanied by a more general judicial commentary on sentencing ranges for the type of offence under consideration. In the words of Professor Ashworth, former chairman of the Sentencing Advisory Panel:
“A guideline judgment is a single judgment which sets out general parameters for dealing with several”
variations of a certain
“type of offence, considering the main aggravating and mitigating factors, and suggesting an appropriate starting point or range of sentences…This kind of judgment was pioneered in the 1970s...guideline judgments...set out a fairly elaborate framework within which judges should determine length of sentence…These judgments acquired authority from the fact that the Lord Chief Justice laid them down: they were intended to bind lower courts, and were treated as doing so...the key element is that they were intended and accepted as binding, in a way that most Court of Appeal judgments on sentence are not.”
The Court of Appeal criminal division’s guideline judgments covered both a limited number of specific offences and more general overarching sentencing principles. Guideline judgments were, however, relatively infrequent and by the late 1990s covered only a small proportion of offences.
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created the Sentencing Advisory Panel to solve a problem with the Court of Appeal system. When drafting its judgments, the Court of Appeal was constrained by the material on which reliance could be placed. The Sentencing Advisory Panel, chaired by a distinguished academic lawyer, was established to draft and consult on proposals for guidelines and to refer them back to the Court of Appeal for consideration and, in that way, to inform the issuing of a guideline judgment. The Court of Appeal was not obliged to accept the panel’s recommendations, but in most cases did so, sometimes with modifications.
The important feature was that the laying down of guidelines remained under the control of the senior judiciary. The Sentencing Advisory Panel was launched on 1 July 1999 as an advisory non-departmental public body, its role being to promote consistency in sentencing by providing objective advice to the CACD to assist it in framing or revising sentencing guidelines. The panel consisted of 14 members, including sentencers, academics, those with recent experience of the criminal justice system and lay people with no connection with criminal justice. They reviewed the applicable law and statistics and any relevant research and consulted on proposals before formulating advice. In its first five years of operation, the panel produced draft guidelines on about a dozen offences, which were submitted to the Court of Appeal. The Court acted on all but one of those advices, issuing guidelines in a subsequent decision.
In 2001, the Home Office published the Halliday report, which examined the sentencing framework in England and Wales and concluded that we should go further and set up an independent body—either the Court of Appeal sitting in a new capacity or a new judicial body set up for that purpose. The Government took that recommendation forward in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which established the Sentencing Guidelines Council. The council was established by the 2003 Act and came into effect on 27 February 2004.
Defendant Anonymity
Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
May I begin by paying tribute to the excellent maiden speakers? In that, I single out the astute comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who mentioned all his local newspapers. It made me wish that I had mentioned during my maiden speech what fantastic publications we have in the Oxford Mail, the Oxford Times, the Abingdon Herald, and the Oxford Journal.
From the outset, I must declare that I have great sympathy with some of the objections that I heard today. Just last week, there was an attempt to abduct a young girl in my constituency from outside a primary school just five minutes from my home in Oxford. I would not want to support any action that would make it harder to find that man and bring him to justice, or action that would make it harder to prevent him from actually succeeding on a future occasion.
I have spent some time investigating sexual violence in conflicts for the Conservatives’ human rights commission and as a volunteer for the local domestic abuse group. I have met, and heard the testimony of, victims of some of the worst crimes imaginable. Those testimonies are seared on my memory, and it is difficult for me to remain completely objective on this issue. As a result, the suggestion of granting anonymity to rape defendants made me very nervous. I am worried that the proposal will send the wrong message to rape victims at a time when we have managed to turn around the culture of disbelief and the poor treatment of rape victims by police and the courts. Credit must go to the previous Labour Government and some of my hon. Friends for the impressive work they did in the past decade to achieve that.
I am also concerned that anonymity will prevent women who find out that their rapist is charged with another offence from coming forward. At the same time, we must accept that in this country, innocent until proven guilty is the fundamental tenet of our law, and we must defend it fiercely. The imperative to protect ourselves, our families and our communities is one of the strongest that we experience, but we must ensure that in trying to do that, we do not give away the very life we want to protect. The rule of law shields us in our innocence and punishes us only in guilt.
I must disagree with some of the comments made today. On the moral spectrum of our culture, sexual offences—especially rape and paedophilia—rank higher in public disgust than many other offences. It is for that reason that if we heard that a teacher at our child’s school or a local GP had been accused of rape, we would find it very difficult not to take action to protect our children on the basis of that suspicion, but if we found out that one of the governors had been accused of theft, we would wait to test the veracity of the allegation before taking action.
Maria Eagle
The Government’s proposal is not to give anonymity to those accused of paedophilia. Rumours abound in schools when things go wrong, and if someone were protected by anonymity and another child were to be hurt by that perpetrator, what kind of signal would that send to society?
Nicola Blackwood
I am merely trying to make the point that our culture ascribes greater disapprobation to sexual offences than it does to other offences—as some in this Chamber have claimed.
I have a constituent who was wrongly recorded as being a sex offender for 15 years before he discovered the error, and the distress that he has experienced has been extreme. Ironically, the very fact that conviction rates for rape are so very low and reoffending rates so famously high perpetuates this culture. When so many defendants are acquitted, there is a sense that it is not because they are innocent but because the system is so poor that it is letting off the guilty. There is a sense that even if they got off that time, the likelihood is that they will do it again and probably do something worse. That means that acquittal in sexual offence trials accords the defendant legal innocence, but does not necessarily accord them innocence in the court of public opinion—they may have lost that for ever.
Meg Munn
I apologise to the hon. Lady for not being in my place at the very start of her speech. Unfortunately, the situation she has just described reflects the fact that it is difficult to achieve a conviction in sexual offence cases. Some of those who have committed offences will be found not guilty because the case has not been proven.
Nicola Blackwood
I accept that, which is why we are in such a difficult position and why this debate is important.
In an age of tabloid journalism, the internet and social networking, the potential damage that such an allegation can cause has increased exponentially and it has become dramatically more difficult to contain. Let us not pretend that we always respond moderately to such allegations. Recently, a paediatrician was targeted because it was thought that she was a paedophile. I am unsure whether the granting of anonymity would be able to contain gossip-mongering and I would like to see that taken into consideration in the inquiry and the expert evidence over the summer. It is worth considering whether there is a way to provide some workable form of anonymity to those accused of all sexual offences in limited circumstances and for limited periods of time. As I say that, I am very conscious that we have heard some very learned contributions from many lawyers today. I am not a lawyer and I hope that hon. Members will bear with me as I try to articulate some of the areas that concern me.
Few of us on either side of this House would be comfortable with the suggestion that automatic anonymity should be granted for any point beyond charge. If proposals were to be made, I would be keen to see a framework that required judicial oversight after charge and a set of criteria that limited eligibility to exceptional circumstances, for example where the police do not consider the defendant a risk to others or if his ability to continue working or living in his community would be catastrophically affected. As has been mentioned, in 2003 the Home Affairs Committee recommended anonymity between allegation and charge, but I would point out that that was for all sexual offences, not just rape. It seems reasonable to offer anonymity for the first period, but I am not necessarily convinced about any period beyond that.
I am also concerned about the impact anonymity might have through additional bureaucracy, if individuals will have to fill in extra forms and go to court for a judgment, about a time lapse in charging, and about whether that will have an effect on fairness and conviction rates. I would welcome more specialised evidence, and I would feel reassured if the inquiry to which the Minister referred were to include significant, if not formal, consultation with those who work on the front line of support services for sexual offences victims. A great deal of concern has been expressed by some in my constituency, and it would be appreciated if they could be consulted.
I do not want to continue much longer, because there has been much debate already and most of the points have already been made. However, before being satisfied that defendant anonymity will be workable, I would want to know that other options for bringing multiple victims forward, such as publicising the modus operandi, would be just as effective as publicising identity. I would want to know that this anonymity would not prevent police from using artistic impressions or closed circuit television shots to hunt suspected criminals where appropriate. I would also want to know that in the labyrinth that is the prosecution of sexual offences, it is possible to produce workable legislation, the bureaucratic burden of which does not outweigh its value.
Most of all, however, I just want to be convinced of one thing: that introducing anonymity for these defendants will not make it harder to convict those who are guilty. I will not close my mind to the possibility that anonymity for sexual offence defendants might be a useful tool in our justice system, but it is wrong that those wrongly accused of rape should have their lives permanently destroyed. However, let us ensure that, in offering anonymity, we are not creating another wrong and setting back sexual offence legislation. Two wrongs do not make a right, and the road this far has been a long and hard one.