Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, many years ago the “Marchioness” inquiry had to have a second coroner’s inquest. The parents of the people who had sadly lost their lives came to me and asked for legal aid, because there was no legal aid generally speaking in that situation. It was possible for me to authorise a fixed payment. In other words, I would decide how long their matter should last. Having had regard to the submissions made, I was able to fix an amount that defrayed the cost of the second inquest for the parents, which was extremely satisfactory.

A police force may be an interested party without being represented, but where it is represented, money should be available to the people affected on the other side. I agree that a judicial officer should decide that. The obvious judicial officer in this case is the coroner, who is already fixed with the ideas and matters likely to be litigated in the inquest. Therefore, if the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was to go for the coroner instead of the elected police commissioner, that would be worth putting on the statute book now, subject to any argument we may yet hear from the Government. It is true that a considerable inquiry is already initiated, but it is primarily related to what happened at Hillsborough, which was a very special case. This is a much more general proposition. There is a good deal to be said for it. If the police want to save public money they should reduce their representation.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, taking into account the contributions that have subsequently been made. I will reinforce some of the points I made in Committee and some of the points the noble Lord made.

Hillsborough was not unique. A more recent case I was a participant in was the inquest of Jean Charles de Menezes. Noble Lords will remember that Jean Charles de Menezes was accidentally killed by armed officers in 2005, having wrongly been identified as one of the suspects who had attempted to carry out a suicide bombing. I gave evidence for the family. I experienced first-hand the tactics deployed by some police counsel at inquests—a search for the truth turns into a bruising adversarial encounter. As I said in Committee, the coroner had to warn the police counsel over the aggressive tactics he was using in cross-examination.

As far as the family of the deceased is concerned, I do not believe there can be any argument. It cannot be right that the police can employ as large and as eminent a legal team as their considerable budgets will allow to represent them while the families of those who die at the hands of the police struggle to raise the funds to be represented at all, nor should it fall to public interest lawyers to have to provide pro bono representation. If the Government are looking for a low-cost or no-cost option, perhaps the police could be forced to divide whatever budget they decide to deploy at an inquest equally with the family of the deceased. Any death at the hands of the police is a tragedy, and it is as important for the police as it is for the family to ensure that the true facts emerge in order to reassure the public that the police have acted fairly and reasonably and to enable the police to counter those with a political agenda, who often accuse them of a cover-up and of having given a misleading account of what happened. Spending public money on establishing beyond doubt what happened when someone died at the hands of the police is worth every penny, and I believe the police themselves should fund both legal teams to the same extent.

I accept what the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said about the issues with this amendment, and I accept what the noble Lords, Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Dear, have said on this issue. Having served in your Lordships’ House for only three years, I do not know whether I should dare say that my understanding is that, as we are on Report, it is only the Government who could bring forward an alternative amendment at Third Reading. If we are, as we should be, trying to establish the principle of equality of arms in an inquest situation, if this is the only amendment we can divide on and if the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, decides to divide the House, we will support him.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I think that if the Government agree that the matter can be reconsidered at Third Reading, it does not need to be a government amendment.