Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Macdonald of River Glaven and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

One can imagine a category of abuse that is primarily financial. Of course, it could carry in its train some of the other features that the noble and learned Lord has alluded to, but it adds something to the definition of domestic violence. We all know that financial power is an important aspect of the power relationship that can exist between men and women, particularly, as he indicates, women who are being abused in other ways. My view is that the adjective “financial” is an important part of the realistic and modern definition of what can cause and amount to domestic violence.

I have a major problem with an approach that risks rolling back decades of progress in our understanding of a crime that is an absolute scourge, not least in the way that it condemns so many of the children who live with it to disordered and chaotic later lives of their own. Talking of cost, that brings its own very high cost, which all of us have to pay. We must have a system of legal aid that works properly to protect the victims of domestic abuse, understanding that it is money well spent. We must have a Bill with the modern definition of that crime and including provision for those who may be too scared or desperate to call the police. As we all understand, domestic violence brings a cycle of damage and despair that is deeply destructive and anti-social. No Government should ever find themselves on the wrong side of this argument.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, I support these amendments. I will particularly refer to Amendment 46. It seems to me that sub-paragraphs (g) (j) and (k) are particularly important. They relate to the less formal types of evidence as opposed to court convictions and the like. These amendments have been eloquently and accurately spoken to by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Macdonald, and I do not want to add too much, apart from a couple of examples. Before I give them, I shall make a point of principle. From my experience as a legal practitioner, it is clear to me that the earlier legal aid is given for the earliest possible intervention, the least harm is likely to be done. I urge the Government to accept that as a very sound principle. I will now give my two illustrations that lead me to that principle.

On one occasion many years ago, when I still practised family law, I was asked to obtain an injunction for a lady from a small town in rural Wales. I was then practising in Chester, and the town in which she lived was about 50 miles west of Chester. She had been driven by various forms of abuse by her husband, some financial—the deprivation of money for daily expenditure for herself and the children, so she could not even buy the children shoes—some emotional and some physical, eventually to go to that daunting place, the local solicitor’s office on the high street. The great solicitor Mr Jones—and he really was called Mr Jones—decided to apply for an injunction, and I was instructed.

Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill

Debate between Lord Macdonald of River Glaven and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Wednesday 5th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

If my noble friend does not mind my saying so, I am not sure that the example that he posits is one that I recollect from my period as DPP. Let us imagine the situation that would exist here: presumably the police or the Security Service would have in their possession something like an intercept that could not be used—for example, a suspect having a conversation with another individual about a plan to place a bomb on the Tube. With respect, that is not the end of an investigation; it is the beginning of one. The investigation that then takes place is into that individual, into the plan as described in the phone call, into the individual he has spoken to and into the associates of all.

The noble Lord will know from his time as Home Secretary that the sorts of powers and abilities that the law enforcement authorities in this country have, which we will not go into here, are considerable and significant. I do not recognise a situation in which a law enforcement investigation stops simply because the deeply incriminating material that you have until that time is the only material that you have and you do not anticipate discovering more.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

But my noble friend Lord Howard did not suggest that. Does not my noble friend Lord Macdonald, from his distinguished period of service as Director of Public Prosecutions, not recollect that cases were brought to him in which at that time there was no further prospect of a successful investigation? That is the question that my noble friend Lord Howard is asking. If that is the case, perhaps my noble friend Lord Macdonald would just tell us that the consequence of his view is that, if a TPIM exists after that time, it should cease.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

Of course one recognises that if an investigation, using all the powers available to the investigating authorities, has continued for a period of time and turned up nothing, under this scheme the TPIM will come to an end—but TPIMs are intended to be time-limited in any event. Under the terms of the Bill, TPIMs will come to an end after two years, so we are not talking about an open-ended system of restrictions. My point is that a system of restrictions applied to criminal investigations is not only more likely to be constitutional and develop broader public support than the system that is currently proposed, but such a system would have attached to it conditions that actively encourage and assist investigation.