Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 46, which relates to the protection of children from sexual communication. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, his amendment is supported by the NSPCC. It proposes a new offence so that it is always illegal for an adult intentionally to send a sexual message to a child.

In recent years children’s internet usage has grown exponentially. As your Lordships know, children between the ages of eight and 15 now spend far more time online than they do watching television. They are also keen users of social networks, with many engaging in risky online behaviour, including being in contact with people via social networks who are not directly known to them, sharing personal information, which makes them vulnerable to abuse, and sharing indecent pictures. We have heard about that from the noble Lord, Lord Harris.

Indeed some people behave in very different ways online to offline, apparently. Police interviews with sex offenders show that the majority differentiate the real world from cyberspace believing that their behaviour is acceptable because what is happening is not real or tangible. One offender said that masturbating on a webcam in front of a teenager seemed like “Fun at the time”. He stated that he would not behave that way offline. Consequently, young people are experiencing all sorts of abuse on a scale that we have never seen before. Last year, Childline, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, had an amazing 168% increase in contacts from children relating to online sexual abuse.

The law needs to be changed better to protect children from adults who send these sorts of sexual messages to them. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, suggested that existing laws cover online grooming but the NSPCC and others who support this campaign do not believe that is true. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was referred to. But, increasingly, abusers online have no intention to meet and abuse the individual child physically. Therefore, the Act apparently does not cover online grooming. There is a similar situation with the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Finally, if the Crown attempted to prosecute an offence under the Communications Act 2003, the defence could argue that the threshold of,

“a message … that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”

had not been met. The Act also does not cover the use of private networks to communicate.

Current laws mean that police can be powerless to act until a child has been coerced into sharing an indecent image, lured to a meeting offline or, in the worst cases, sexually abused. The confusing nature of the law in this area means far more needs to be done to enable the police to take early action to prevent abuse escalating, reducing the risk to children and young people and helping them to keep safe online.

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, seeks to close this gap in the law better to protect children online and would enable action to be taken against offenders at an earlier stage of the grooming process before an arrangement to meet had been made. It would help protect children from unwanted sexualised content online, potentially have a deterrent effect on offenders and put more responsibility on adults to ensure that who they are talking to online is indeed another adult. More than 75% of people believe it is already illegal for some aged over 18 to send a sexual message to a child under 16, while more than 80% of people have expressed support for such a change in the law. I very much hope that the Government will support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it always seems churlish to take up points in the text of an amendment when one supports the thrust of it but I am afraid I am going to. The action of grooming is hugely serious. On the noble Lord’s example, I wonder whether at least a part of that will be covered by the revenge porn amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill about the use of images, moved on Report. My noble friend Lady Grender, who put her name to it, arrived just after I had managed to find the text of that amendment. However, that is not my only point on this amendment.

The grooming which the noble Lord described often includes a lack of knowledge in either direction of the people taking part in e-mail exchanges. Therefore, I wonder whether it is appropriate to use the words, which I think have come from the 2003 Act, of A not reasonably believing that B is 16 or over, particularly as I suspect—I do not have detailed knowledge of this—that B, the child, may often claim to be older than she or he is. That is probably my major concern. There is also a reference to subsection (3) which sets out the circumstances in which no offence has been committed—but that only applies to paragraph (1)(d) where it must also apply to (1)(c), and it does not actually need stating in either case.

Perhaps I had better not go down the road of whether communications are written or oral—perhaps verbal is the word one should use there. More serious is the question of whether the list in proposed new subsection (4) is intended to be exhaustive. I would have thought not, but it reads that way. In proposed new subsection (4)(d) I query the reference to promotion of,

“emotional well-being by the giving of advice, and not for a sexual purpose”.

I am not sure whether those words correctly describe the difference between the sexual purpose of the perpetrator and the connection between emotional well-being, sexual advice and sexual well-being, which are inseparable.

Finally, might it not be better to go at this by trying to amend the Sexual Offences Act itself? That would lead to consequences, including the sex offenders register, to which the noble Lord quite rightly referred. Again, while I support the thrust of this, I am afraid that I could not support this particular amendment, which would take us in a direction that might be more difficult to untangle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak in support of Amendment 47 of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. Some may take the view that internet service providers cannot be held responsible for information that people use them to hold. Although, in my view, ISPs certainly do not have responsibility for generating content, they do, however, play a very important role in facilitating it: first, in the sense that storage protects the material in question and thereby helps to guarantee its continued existence; and, secondly, in the sense of providing a basis from which the said material may be transmitted. In so doing, they have a responsibility actively to take all reasonable steps to ensure, on an ongoing basis, that they are not facilitating the storage and/or transmission of material of the kind set out in subsection (1) of the clause proposed in the amendment.

For myself, I would also like ISPs to have to demonstrate that these active steps have indeed been taken, and are being taken, on an ongoing basis. We must foster a legislative framework that exhibits zero tolerance of all aspects of child sex abuse images, including ISPs facilitating the storage and/or transmission of such images. I very much look forward to listening to what the Minister has to say in his response to this important amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I hate to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but I fear that I am going to, as I simply have a question for him. I speak from a basis of almost no technological knowledge, but I would have thought that, presumably, all the services are open to abuse. Can I just ask what consultation there has been on this? The noble Lord talked about the responsible, innovative and exciting—if you are that way inclined—work being done by some of the ISPs. Like him, I have found the big players to be very responsible and wanting to be seen to be responsible. However, the proposed provision would obviously put an obligation on them. I would be interested to know how they have responded to it, if the noble Lord has had the opportunity to ascertain that.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. I believe that what happened in the Commons, the way in which this whole area was tossed aside and not debated at all, was disgraceful. I believe that the very least that the Government can do is to answer the three questions that my noble friend has put to the Minister. I would lay the greatest emphasis on having an annual report on progress that is made in the whole of this area.

I am especially concerned about the differences in the treatment of men and women for two reasons. First, there is a distinct difference in the backgrounds of women who are in prison for very short sentences. As we have heard, such sentences account for the vast majority of women—and indeed men—in prison. As one example, 5% of the prison population are women, and yet 31% of self-harmers in prison are women. The Government should receive full marks for starting to outline, at last, these plans, as we have begun to get a picture of what we hope will happen in the future. I am very supportive of these plans as there are so many women in prison who should not be there, certainly not to serve short sentences as is currently the case.

Secondly, and above all, these women should not be in prison because of the effect that it is having on their families. How many of those families will find their own way into prison as a result of having had their family broken up, having been taken into care or placed with relatives and, above all, having lost that very particular relationship between mother and child? I believe that that is the worst aspect of all. How many facts are we given about the number of families who are repeatedly in and out of prison in a continual spiral of offending?

Good luck to the Government with their plans, but please let us have a report on what is happening, and let us have real progress. Quite apart from the women concerned, I believe that we will find that this kind of treatment could be as applicable to men in our prison service. We need a whole overview of what goes on.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I would be surprised if some Members of your Lordships’ House were satisfied with a report as infrequently as annually. The questions, rightly, will come quite often to my noble friend, as they have done over the years. I know that this is something that he holds close to his heart, as does Helen Grant. I note that the document published on Friday—which I, too, thought was shorter than expected—is headed Strategic Objectives for Female Offenders and does not purport to be a complete strategy.

Perhaps I may ask my noble friend one question which follows on from what the noble Baroness has just said. It concerns the effect on children of their mother’s imprisonment. I suppose that this is a plea to include that in the strategy. The developing knowledge about the effect on children of separation from their mothers is something that we should take very seriously, and no doubt we will be considering it in the Children and Families Bill. I hope that my noble friend can reassure the House that the whole-system approach which is referred to in the strategic objectives is a whole system that will extend in all the ways we know it should, and not just to the narrow punitive and personal rehabilitative aspects that we have mostly been talking about this evening.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Hamwee

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 17 is a small but significant amendment and I am going to be told that the word “wants” is defined somewhere else. We now go into provisions about the disclosure of information. The amendment is to the paragraph allowing for further disclosure, once it has been disclosed through the first few parts of paragraph 27, to another relevant person, which is of course defined,

“who wants social security information or finances information”.

I suggest that “wants” is a very wide term. I can want something but I do not need it. We all know children who “need” sweeties or whatever, but they do not really: they want them. An official could want information because it makes life that much easier. “Requires” would be the proper term here. There should be an appropriate, underlying—I am struggling for a synonym —need, underlying requirement, necessity or something very close to necessity. It should not just make life a bit easier for the person who is asking for it. One might almost have referred, “to another relevant person who asks for it”. That would certainly have been too wide and “wants” is quite close to that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, when I read the amendment I thought it absolutely appropriate to use the word that has been supplied. I very much hope that the Government will accept “requires” instead of “wants”.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, as one of those who have taken part in the inquiry, I congratulate the Government on what they have come around to; that is, a serious awareness of the horrendous crime of stalking. In many cases the advent of the internet has been very valuable, although it is now quite often used for cyber stalking and this horrendous crime. It has to be tackled.

I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on her attempt to produce the right form of words for this part of the Bill. On this point, I have one sadness, and that is that there is not a completely separate Bill on stalking. We all know how crowded our agendas are, but that would have been an important step. An actual Bill dedicated to stalking would stand out and attract everyone’s attention. In the mean time, I hope the Government will agree to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. Picking up the threads, it sounds as if there really is a basis for giving the other place an opportunity to debate this important subject because I think that some of them are hardly aware of the issue. That would be an added plus.

There must be a clear understanding that what must be discussed are the horrendous psychological effects of this crime, which have been very well set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who is an expert in the field. It is a form of psychological violence that may not be as visible as physical violence against women but, my goodness, the long-term effects are huge. With my fingers crossed, I hope that the right conclusions will be reached not just between all these Benches but between both Houses.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Government are indeed to be congratulated on having moved so positively and with such comparative speed following the report and their own consultation. I also congratulate the members of the parliamentary group and the individuals who have so bravely spoken out. I have one point to put and one question to ask.

The point is to encourage the Minister—not that I think he needs to be encouraged—with regard to the terminology, “fear, alarm, distress or anxiety”, as well as violence. I want to mention to the House that last week during the Report stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, my noble friend Lord McNally, the Minister at the Ministry of Justice, put forward a definition of domestic violence that was agreed. It covers,

“threatening behaviour, violence or abuse whether psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional”.

As I say, I do not think that my noble friend needs encouragement, but if that is useful ammunition to pass on to those who are doing the drafting and who might be a little resistant to the extension, I hope he can use it. My question is about remedies. There is a provision in Section 3 of the 1997 Act for a restraining order. When the Act is amended, will that section remain available for use by a victim of an offence under either of the new sections? I am sorry that I did not give my noble friend notice of my question, but it only occurred to me during the first speech in this debate. Would Section 3 have to be used or is there an inherent right in the courts? I am thinking of an extreme situation, although they are all extreme, where someone is given a custodial sentence, but there is also a concern that he should stay away when he comes out of prison. I am particularly prompted in this because of the provision in Schedule 1 to the legal aid Bill which allows for civil legal aid services to be provided in relation to an injunction made under Section 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. I hope that everything which needs to be can be swept in the last knockings of this issue.