Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I have one point to add to what has been said by my noble friend Lord Pannick. The word “publisher” troubles me a bit. It is not defined in the amendment, and I am not quite sure what that word is directed to. Is it somebody in business as a publisher or somebody who simply publishes something, describing the activity rather than the trade? The amendment would be improved if something was said in it as to what exactly is meant by the word “publisher”.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I speak briefly in support of Amendments 104E and 104F, in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. In doing so, I declare my interest as director of Generation Rent.

Predators online attempt to coerce men and women to exchange sex for a home by exploiting their financial vulnerabilities. They have used the economic effects of the pandemic as a marketing technique. This is already a crime, and it is not a new crime, but there has only ever been one charge for this offence, and that was in January last year. However, back in 2016, Shelter found that 8% of women had been offered a sexual arrangement. Two years later, its polling estimated that 250,000 women had been asked for sexual favours in exchange for free or discounted rent, and its more recent research showed that 30,000 women in the UK were propositioned with such an arrangement between the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and January 2021.

This is a crime that goes on, openly and explicitly, through adverts on online platforms. Despite the adverts being clear in their intention, they go unchecked, are placed without consequence and are largely ignored by law enforcement and the online platform providers. The fact that there has only ever been one charge for this crime shows how inadequate the law and CPS guidance are in this area.

The victims of this exploitation have been failed. As my noble friend said, for a victim to get justice, they need to be defined as a prostitute for a criminal case to progress, which is a huge deterrent that has to be changed. The online platforms—that is what I believe is meant by “publisher”—allow this crime to be facilitated, and they must have action taken against them. That is why I very much support the amendments tabled by my noble friend.

In closing, I pay tribute to the honourable Member for Hove in the other place for his campaigning on this issue, and the many journalists who have kept this issue on the agenda, including the team at ITV, whose research I understand helped to lead to the one charge for this crime that there has ever been. No one should ever be forced by coercion or circumstance to exchange sex for her home. There is a housing emergency in this country. It continues to hit new lows—so low that sexual predators can deliberately take advantage of people’s desperation to find a home. For me, Amendments 104E and 104F are an opportunity to protect some of the country’s most vulnerable renters.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I shall be brief because we have a lot to get through. I should have preferred Amendments 140E and 104F, the sex-for-rent amendments and the facilitating amendments, to be rather more tightly drawn. I note that the points I made in Committee were taken by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. However, I have been persuaded by re-reading the speech made in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and what she said today, with her extensive experience as director of Generation Rent—that there is a serious need for criminal legislation to stop what is a particularly nasty form of predatory behaviour. I also took the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the interpretation of Amendment 140E, implicitly supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, so we will support those amendments. We will also of course support the amendment calling for a review of the criminal law relating to exposure offences and spiking offences, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and which we supported in Committee.

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Moved by

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley]

104FC: After Clause 172, insert the following new Clause—
“Section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956: removal of time limitation
(1) Proceedings for the offence under section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (intercourse with a girl between thirteen and sixteen) are not barred only by virtue of the passage of time since the date of the alleged offence.(2) Nothing in this section permits the trial of a person who has already been convicted of an offence relating to the sexual intercourse in question.”

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, men who seduced girls between the ages of 13 and 16 before 1 May 2004 are effectively immune from prosecution because of a procedural time limit. The law therefore stops historic child abusers from being held accountable for their actions; the law denies justice to women in England and Wales who were groomed for sex as teenage girls before 1 May 2004 as they cannot bring charges against the people who took advantage of them. Let me take a minute to explain why.

Abusers are immune from prosecution because sexual offences committed before 1 May 2004 must be prosecuted under the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Under that Act, the applicable offence is unlawful sexual intercourse, as outlined in Section 6. In the 1956 Act, and there is a time limit of one year from the alleged commission of the offence under Section 6. Proceedings must therefore be instituted within a year from then. This time limit is clear and unambiguous and can be found in paragraph 10 of Schedule 2 to the Act.

Amendment 104FC would remove the time limit and therefore remove the legal barrier which protects abusers of underage girls from prosecution. Some may read this speech and question why I am using the phraseology “girl” and not “child”. This is because, remarkably, the time limit applies only to girls; if the victim were a boy, it would be different, as historical cases of sexual intercourse between men and boys under 16 can still be prosecuted. How can the law deny justice and discriminate in this way, and this House not seek to put it right?

The time limit has to be removed, especially as no such time limit applies to offences of this nature committed after 1 May 2004. If a man had sexual intercourse with a girl aged between 13 and 16 after 1 May 2004, he can be prosecuted for the new offence of sexual activity with a child. That was created by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, where no equivalent time limit is applied. This time limit is therefore a procedural anomaly that clearly stands in the way of justice.

This problem had been going on for some time, since before May 2004, but prosecutors were for a long time able to evade the time limit. Instead of charging for underage sexual intercourse, which could not be done if the offence was discovered or prosecuted too late, they would charge for indecent assault in relation to the same underage sexual intercourse. But in 2004, when this House also acted in its judicial capacity, it considered an appeal by a Mr J, who argued that his charge of indecent assault was a device to circumvent the time limit and was an abuse of the court—and the House accepted his argument. Since that time, therefore, men who procured sexual intercourse from vulnerable and impressionable girls before 1 May 2004 have been immune from prosecution.

Some may say that this may be an unnecessary change and ask how many people it would actually affect—but, as the CPS does not keep a record of how many cases are discounted at an early stage because of issues like time limits, there is no data for us to know whether this is affecting one woman, 1,000 women or more. What we do know is that, sadly, historic sexual abuse comes to light all too frequently. We know that girls can be threatened into silence for long periods of time. It is well known that very many girls, victimised in these ways, only recognise themselves as victims, or only have the confidence to go to the police much later than one year afterwards, or something else comes to light that encourages them to bravely break their silence. There must be hundreds of thousands of cases where men seduced a girl aged between 13 and 16 before 1 May 2004, but those victims for various reasons never told the police during the year.

I do not believe that we should need much evidence of the extent of the problem to justify the removal of this arbitrary time limit and allow justice to be done. Some may argue that you cannot retrospectively make law in this way, but applying that argument to this amendment I believe is incorrect. It is true that you cannot retrospectively create new offences and punish people for them—but here, the relevant offence always existed. This amendment would just change the rules relating to trial for those offences. It has always been understood that rules of evidence and procedure can be amended and have immediate effect in subsequent trials, regardless of when the acts complained of actually happened. Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as I understand it, applies to the definition of offences and defences; it does not apply to matters of procedure, including time limits.

Finally, some may argue that this amendment risks exposing those who were prosecuted and successfully used the time limit to avoid prosecution to further conviction. That is not my intention with this amendment, which is why subsection (2) of my proposed new clause states:

“Nothing in this section permits the trial of a person who has already been convicted of an offence relating to the sexual intercourse in question.”


I am aware that that this is a complex matter, and I thank Dr Jonathan Rogers, assistant professor in criminal justice at Cambridge University, who has been arguing for a change in the law to address this issue for many years. I thank him for all his advice and support on this issue. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, for meeting Dr Rogers and me last week to discuss this matter. We are conscious that our meeting lasted twice as long as expected, so I thank him for the time that he gave and for the further discussions that were facilitated between Dr Rogers and the Civil Service team. However, my view remains that this issue needs resolving; there are still women who are denied justice for what happened to them in their early teenage years and men who can be fairly tried. This time limit is wrong —the amendment would remove it and, in doing so, close a loophole which protects sex offenders. I beg to move.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend, who is quite right in everything she has said. Sexual abuse and rape can quite often take decades to come to light. The anomaly, which she has outlined very clearly, is within the power of the Government to put right, and I urge the Minister to do so.

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I hope it is clear from what I have said, if noble Lords are still with me on this, that this is a question involving complex but important legal issues—and one on which, it is fair to say, a variety of legal views can reasonably be held. Bearing in mind, therefore, that we are on Report, the Government’s position is that this issue would benefit from further consideration outside the time constraints of this Bill. I will ensure that it is given suitable consideration; I am happy to continue the discussions with the noble Baroness and Dr Rogers. On the understanding that it will be reconsidered and continually considered, I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and for the large amount of time last week that he and his advisers gave me and Dr Rogers from Cambridge University, whose writing, as the Minister said, has rightly put this issue into the public arena.

I note the Government’s concerns about Article 7, but I also note that Governments have taken greater risks with Article 7 before when the political will has been there. I believe that there is cross-party consensus that men who continually seduced underage girls, in many cases ruining their young lives for their own amusement, in the 1980s and 1990s still deserve to be punished.

There is also Strasbourg case law, which condemns states for relying on arbitrary procedural rules that act as barriers to effective justice in cases of sexual offences against the young. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti referred to one such case in Committee. However, as the Minister suggests, we should pause to consider whether Article 7 might protect a man who would be prosecuted after the original time limit expired. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has expressly said that the propriety of this is yet to be decided; on that basis, I accept that there is a risk that merits further consideration. I appreciate that this needs more time to resolve than the timing of the Bill allows. I therefore very much welcome the Minister’s offer to keep the discussions on this issue going with the Minister who is directly responsible for this area of policy. Today is only the start of the discussion on this issue.

I remain hopeful that, through discussion with the Government, more can be done to quantify the exact risk of losing a case under Article 7. If it is low, I hope that we will have the courage of our convictions and change the law for the better, as we did with the double jeopardy rules in 2003. I am grateful to the Minister for his offer to facilitate further deliberations on this issue; I look forward to future discussions with him and other Ministers.

I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 104FC withdrawn.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, so many of us in this House have personal experience of watching someone close to us die of a terminal illness. That experience will undoubtedly influence our view, as it has mine. However, even with such lived experience, I believe that only those facing the relentless progression of a terminal illness truly understand what we are debating here. As with every other policy area that we discuss, we should listen and take note of the stories of those most affected by the decisions we take. For me, the overriding message of the end-of-life stories of those advocating for this Bill is a plea for choice and control—a chance for the person most affected to decide for themselves when they have had enough.

My personal story is one of a lack of choice and control for my mother at the end of her life. When she knew that her cancer was terminal, choosing where she would like to die was the most important decision. She felt very strongly about it—and believe me, everyone was very clear what she wanted. However, after a fall, she ended up in hospital and, despite her plea to go home, the doctor would only discharge her to a hospice. Her control was gone and her choice to die where she wanted was denied. This experience, albeit limited, leads me to believe very strongly that creating a lawful, regulated option with proper safeguards to allow those without hope of recovery the chance to choose when and where they end their life is the right thing to do.

I have read the many arguments against this Bill. In addition to the understandable religious objections, there seem to be three main themes of argument against assisted dying. The first is that doctors should not be forced to take a life. However, in my mother’s case, the increased doses of morphine given to her as part of the now-abandoned Liverpool care pathway were a medical decision and not my mother’s. Although that practice is no longer used, end-of-life decisions are still largely in the hands of doctors. Patients have very few options to control the end of their life.

The second argument, that there should be better palliative care, is strong. I agree, but my support for assisted dying does not mean, by any means, that I do not support providing better palliative care. I do. For me, this issue is about choice at the end of one’s life.

Finally, there is a legitimate concern that vulnerable people might feel pressured into ending their lives. These concerns should not be brushed aside. Proper safeguards need to accompany any legislation on assisted dying; I believe that this has been taken into account as part of the Bill.

My limited but personal experience and consideration of the arguments lead me to support this Bill. I want to see it progress through this House.

Criminal Justice System: Equal Treatment of Deaths and Injuries

Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I agree that perhaps going slightly above the speed limit is something that, inadvertently, many of us might do for a short period, but no one is sympathetic to the behaviour of those who drive very dangerously, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and cause devastation to the families of the people they kill or injure. This Government, in the PCSC Bill, are looking to increase the sentencing powers for courts where people who have committed that sort of behaviour are convicted.

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware of the tragic death of Ryan Saltern. He was killed by a driver who failed to stop and report the accident, yet upon conviction the driver received only a four-month jail sentence, suspended for a year. With this case in mind, does the noble Lord agree that issues such as this should be addressed in the PCSC Bill, either through the creation of a hit-and-run offence or by ensuring that, in cases where someone is killed or seriously injured by a motorist, magistrates are required to send the person convicted to the Crown Court for sentencing?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware of that case, and I send my condolences to the family of Ryan Saltern. Failure to stop offences are often referred to as hit and runs, but that is not really an accurate reflection of the offence. The offence is designed to deal with the behaviour relating to the failure to stop; it is not an alternative route to punish an offender for a more serious but not proven offence. As I said, where there is evidence that the driver caused harm, there are other offences they can be charged with, and the failure to stop will then be an aggravating feature in the sentencing for that offence.