Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Woolf]

My Lords, I pay credit to the speeches that have already been made from all sides of the House, including, I am glad to say, from those Members of this House who are entitled to be known not only as “noble Lords” but as “noble and learned Lords”. I do not conceive that anyone would think that I was not in complete agreement with every one of their speeches. However, just in case that might not be the situation, I say most emphatically that I have never heard such an indictment of our justice system as I have listened to this afternoon.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, coming from a background in policing many years ago, it might be thought by those who indulge in stereotypes that I would be a lone voice advocating that we should get involved in what is sometimes called “lock them up and lose the key”. I stand in your Lordships’ House today to say that I fully accord with everything that has been said. The case was admirably laid out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and other noble and learned Lords in this House. I, too, agree with everything that was said, and if the House is invited to divide, I shall vote with the amendment.

[Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)]

My Lords, I fully support the argument adduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. It goes without saying that we are entitled to remove a stain—and I say that advisedly—on our legal system. I will not detain the House for long, but I fully support what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has said, which has been supported by so many other Peers.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. I am advised that it is the correct procedure—in view of the hour, it seems a very appropriate procedure—for me to speak only once to introduce my objections to both Clauses 23 and 24. Clause 23 deals with the introduction of a new offence of police corruption and Clause 24 introduces a mandatory whole life term for the murder of a police officer or a prison officer while on duty. I spoke at some length at Second Reading on 30 June and I do not intend to do so again or to rehearse all the arguments I made then. However, it is probably necessary for me to make clear that I regard police corruption as a cancerous evil which is ever present and which I and other noble Lords who were police officers have successfully investigated. Even more directly, I give way to no one in my abhorrence of the murder of a police officer or prison officer while on duty, particularly, but not exclusively, because someone tried to murder me.

Noble Lords speaking in support of removing these clauses from the Bill will make their own points but my first covers them both. Curiously, although they cover significantly different aspects of criminal law, the two clauses are connected by a simple proposition: they are bad law and they are unnecessary law because they are symbolic legislation, which I have heard before in your Lordships’ House is normally a reprehensible idea. The purpose of this proposal is to strike them out. It is, of course, in the nature of a probing amendment which will not be pressed to a Division but it seeks to ask the Minister and, if I may so request, the Front Benches of other parties to explain—I hope, in some detail—why this symbolic legislation should be embraced. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has just spoken of gimmicks; there may be some right here.

As regards Clause 23, I am absolutely certain that there is simply no lacuna. There is simply no gap to be filled between the Bribery Act 2010, some residuary clauses in the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 and the common law offence of misconduct in public office. The Minister has just mentioned other offences in relation to the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. That was part of his argument for why that amendment should not pass. Exactly the same position applies in this case. No investigator or prosecutor has ever suggested to me that there is a difficulty in framing a charge in relation to police corruption. Subsection (11) of the clause confirms that by insisting that this legislation does not affect the common law offence of misconduct in public office. If there is no gap in the law, why introduce some new legislation? I think that my noble friend Lord Dear will flesh out a number of other professions to which such a law could equally logically—or perhaps equally illogically—be extended, as I did at Second Reading. However, I should also point out that the offence created by this legislation is exceptionally broadly and loosely drawn and will bring with it pointless investigations and contested trials.

I have heard it said that the clause is being introduced as a response to previously uninvestigated allegations of corruption—there were plenty of previously investigated allegations of corruption—in the case of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, and to the so-called “plebgate” events. I would only point out to noble Lords on all sides that it is normal to allow such investigations and court cases to come to an end before deciding to legislate further. Mr Ellison QC should now be allowed to finish his investigation; and the contested libel cases—I emphasise the plural—concerning who said what to whom outside 10 Downing Street should be allowed to come to court before judgments are made before introducing this sort of legislation.

Clause 24 is worse—much worse. It is not only unnecessary and populist but genuinely dangerous to the lives of police and prison officers—as I alluded to at Second Reading by quoting the case of Harry Roberts, who is still serving a life term 48 years after the murder of three police officers in 1966. There is simply no evidence of judicial complacency when sentencing those convicted of murdering a police or prison officer on duty.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who has appended his name to this Question on whether Clause 24 should stand part of the Bill, cannot be in his place, but I know that if he were here he would have reflected that, shortly after the abolition of capital punishment in 1965, a number of attempts were made to make an exception by retaining capital punishment for the murder of a police officer. These attempts were always defeated for exactly the same reason that I referred to at Second Reading and shall set out again briefly. If the murderer of a police officer has escaped from the scene, he or she will be aware that if this legislation is passed, he or she, if apprehended, will face life without parole. There is no incentive for him or her to surrender, and no further penalty can be given to him or her for killing more police officers. Why not entrap them? Why not go out in a deluded blaze of glory and take more hated police officers with them? It is “suicide by cop” as it is known. This measure is simply dangerous, unhelpful and totally misguided.

It is interesting only a small number of Back-Benchers are in your Lordships’ House at the moment—all of them former police officers, and all of whom object to this clause for that reason. I should be fascinated to hear why the different political parties support these clauses.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Clause 23, although my comments could equally well apply to Clause 24. I accord entirely with the last remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. I also remind noble Lords of my record in dealing with police corruption and malpractice. I emphasise the fact that I do not in any way diminish the seriousness, importance and reprehensibility of any abuse of office. Any corruption is reprehensible, particularly by those in authority. That of course includes police officers.

As has been said—and I will not go through it in detail—the current law is adequate and all-embracing. It captures all the possible misbehaviour and misconduct of those in public office, including police officers. The proposal does not add one jot to the armoury of offences that prosecutors can deploy. In fact, when reading jurisprudence at university, I well remember it being said that it was a universal truth that repetitious legislation—one offence after another, all dealing with exactly the same principle—was odious. I, too, would be interested if the Minister could tell us why it is such a good idea at the moment.

I notice that Mr Jeremy Wright MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, said:

“The public expect the police to act with honesty and integrity at all times”.

He went on to say that the Government felt that the best way to proceed was,

“to create a new offence of police corruption that applies solely to police officers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/14; cols. 1020-1.]

He said that this would be alongside the existing, broader common-law offence of misconduct in public office. The new offence in the Bill carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. Misconduct in public office carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The safety net is there.

Queen's Speech

Lord Dear Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, as other noble Lords have done, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, to the Front Bench. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord McNally. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs—four or five speakers back—mentioned his long political association with the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Mine goes back a good deal longer than that—in fact, all the way back to University College London when we were rather disreputable undergraduates together. We have come a long way to arrive here in your Lordships’ House today. We are undoubtedly wiser, older and, I think, better looking—certainly on his part.

I think that the noble Lord would join me in expressing relief not to be facing another monster criminal justice Bill, policing Bill or evidence Bill, with which we have had to put up, certainly during my past four and a half years, and, in his case, for a good deal longer. Instead, we are asked to endorse a repeal of unnecessary criminal offences. I say, “Hear, hear” to that. If anyone is looking for a list, I will willingly add some to it, but it is something which needs addressing as a matter of urgency.

Today I should like to highlight a number, but by no means all, the issues that are important. Indeed, I should have liked to have spoken at length, as others have, on the whole structure of government and, in particular, the structure of this House—but I refrain from that today. In no order of priority, I wish to go through a number of issues and then concentrate on a rather more important one.

First, crime is undoubtedly reducing numerically overall, but public concern about lawlessness seems to continue at a high level. One might well say that the fear of crime outstrips the reality. I contend that that is driven by what is often called the yob culture. Anti-social behaviour, which seems to gain in its virility and impetus almost on a weekly basis, is seen in its more extreme form in binge drinking. We are asked to consider, later in this Session, tackling low-priced alcohol. That is probably good, but it is probably only one small step down what must be a very long road. There was a time, 10 or 12 years ago, when we were trying very hard to bring about the growth, or even the implementation, of a café culture or café society. I do not think that we have done that. We may never get there—certainly not in the short term—and we need to look very closely at licensing hours, which may be too long. Certainly they extend too far into the small hours. We need to examine the proliferation of large drinking establishments which are clustered together in many city and town centres, to look for much better-co-ordinated action by the police and local authority, and a much more consistent and realistic sentencing policy in the courts. In other words, on this issue, we will find ourselves winding the clock back to where we were 15 years or so ago, rather than trying to develop the café culture going forward.

On scrapping ID cards, we have spent too long and too much money and effort on them, and I would endorse their immediate demise.

On the regulation of CCTV, there is a balance to be struck. Your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Constitution, in a paper published in 2009, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, recommended a number of things: a statutory regime for the use of CCTV in the public and private sectors, legally binding codes of practice, a complaints system, an oversight procedure and so on. We could well use that report as a good starting point for looking at this. There is a balance clearly to be struck on this and, indeed, on other issues also.

The same Select Committee commented on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. We need to look at RIPA in a thoroughgoing review—in particular, the use of that legislation by councils. The use of RIPA to deal with dog fouling, excessively filled bins and so on debases the intent of that legislation.

On the use of intercept evidence, I have been pleased—as have many others in your Lordships’ House—to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who is not in his place, in trying to introduce the concept of intercept evidence into criminal procedures. We should examine and identify ways of introducing it into criminal trials. At the same time, we should be wary of what the security services and the police have already cited as examples of where they do not want their sensitive methods and procedures demonstrated in the public arena. We need to balance that; but it is not beyond the wit of man or, indeed, the skills of this Government to find a way to address it.

On self-defence—an issue that is bobbing about, but which attracts a great deal of attention in the media from time to time—I see no need to change the law. I support what the Law Society has said at length, and there is a real need for the exercise of common sense by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service in their approach. There needs to be speedy resolution—particularly in such cases—rather than leaving someone hanging about wondering what the outcome will be, and only finding out months after the event that no proceedings are to be taken against them. Speed is always essential in the judicial process, particularly in those circumstances.

I have nailed my colours to the mast on DNA records. I simply say once again that I believe we should adopt the procedures and requirements established in Scotland. In saying so, I do not so much declare an interest in this, but mention for the record that I am chairman of a company that provides forensic examination of DNA to the police and many other organisations but has no interest in the maintenance of the records and the DNA register.

Finally, before I touch on my major point, I think we should examine whether the growth in control orders and their use is fully justified and whether the use of terrorism surveillance powers for relatively trivial terrorist offences—if that is not an oxymoron—is justified and review the counterterrorist legislation generally so as adequately to empower the police and the Security Service but also safeguard the basic, fundamental, long-established rights of the citizen. This is an issue in which it is well known that your Lordships have shown a continuing interest over the years, and I am sure that it will continue.

So far as policing is concerned—I declare an interest here because I served in all ranks of the police service for over 30 years up to and including 1997—as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said in his excellent maiden speech, we do not want any more reviews. What we want in the public sector is leadership. So far as the police service is concerned, the need for good leadership is paramount. I commend to the Government attention to the development of leaders of quality in that service. We have made considerable gains in terms of structure, but we could look at the structure again, if not in this Session, in later Sessions.

Lastly, I want to touch with some emphasis on the Government’s proposal to make the police more accountable and to have directly elected police commissioners. I could speak for half an hour on this, but time prevents me. I am not sure what “commissioner” means in these terms. If it means a directly elected police chief, I would die in a ditch over that. The Minister shakes her head, and I am relieved to know that. If we are talking about directly elected chairmen of police authorities, we should examine that. Police authorities may not like that too much, but if what we are talking about is not so much accountability, which was mentioned in the gracious Speech, but about making the police more accessible, more sensitive to local issues and more aware of what the public want, we should do that. If a direct election of the chairman is necessary, then we should do it.

However, I conclude on this warning note: it is very dangerous ground. There are great dangers when directly electing somebody to this position of having political influence, which leads to political control. That control could be overt or covert. A power to hire and fire, for example, would be taking away and cutting across the residual powers of the Home Secretary, which one has already in place in extremis. I say unashamedly that I will support the concept, but I want to look very closely at how we stop it running through into political influence and control, which I would abhor. Put very simply, being sensitive to public opinion is a good thing; being subordinate to it is another. It is a matter of great constitutional importance, and I am sure that your Lordships will treat it as such in due course.