Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Second sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)]

Q Phil, for the benefit of the Committee, would you mind expanding a bit on the benefits of problem-solving courts?

Phil Bowen: Of course. The Centre for Justice Innovation has long been a supporter of problem-solving courts. At their simplest, they bring together specialist supervision and intervention teams with the powers and authority of a court to review progress regularly against a sentencing plan. They generally operate out of existing courthouses and are built from existing resources. We already do work on and support about 11 courts across the UK that use problem solving to manage specific caseloads, including three in Northern Ireland, sponsored by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, and four in Scotland. That is in addition to the 14 family, drug and alcohol courts already in existence in England in the public family law system.

As you know from the Bill, the Government propose to pilot three separate and distinct models of problem-solving courts in England and Wales in the criminal court system: a substance misuse court model; a model to tackle domestic abuse; and a model to help vulnerable women avoid short-term custody. We are very supportive of the move, for which we have been calling for a long time. We believe that the evidence base on all three of those models is robust enough that the piloting of them in England and Wales would be useful as a first step before thinking about their further roll-out across the system. We think there is a real chance to reduce the use of unnecessary custody and tackle reoffending, particularly in the substance misuse and vulnerable women models and, in terms of the model to tackle domestic abuse, to really hold perpetrators to account and give victims a sense of safety and involve them in the ongoing supervision of those perpetrators.

Adrian Crossley: Thank you; I am grateful. I am very well aware of the work that Phil Bowen is doing. CSJ also endorses the use of problem-solving courts. They have the potential to be enormously beneficial to defendants sometimes facing serious matters across the UK.

In terms of the scope of the proposed pilots, I think that the chosen three categories—domestic abuse, substance abuse and vulnerable women facing prison sentences—are wise choices. What is best about a problem-solving court is that it draws from real specialist knowledge and experience that can really look behind a problem, understand it and provide practical solutions, so these issues are worth tackling. One point I would note as a matter of caution is that problem-solving courts at their best are fantastic, but they do pose dangers. I am pleased to see that we are starting with a relatively small pilot because it is important to get right the things that sometimes appear to be small. For example, listing cases for problem courts to ensure that they are before the same panel that can continually look at a case and review it, and understand that the team that they are working with and the person in front of them are important.

In our jurisdiction, we have sometimes had difficulty with listing in front of lay magistrates—problems that they do not necessarily experience to the same degree overseas in the US. So there are examples of things that need to be done well and right. I am pleased to see that those three categories have been chosen, because they are worth tackling, and I am pleased to see that the initial pilots are small enough to allow proper analysis and reform as we go along.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Q Still on the subject of problem-solving courts, I am concerned that the problem-solving courts do not include mental health. People with ADHD and neurodiverse and mental health conditions are over-represented in our prisons, so I wonder what Phil and Adrian have to say about how those issues can be resolved, and whether they think the problem-solving courts’ proposals need to be expanded.

[The Chair]

Adrian, would you like to go first?

Adrian Crossley: Yes. Thank you. I can entirely see that that concern is absolutely valid. We know from the CSTR—community sentence treatment requirements—model that substance abuse and mental health are both dealt with alongside each other, separately but often in the same hearings. It is an absolutely valid concern. I would also say that as well as substance abuse, there is now a growing need to consider the impact of gambling addiction. That issue is becoming increasingly prevalent in our country. Sadly, over the last 15 years, there has been an explosion in this sort of addiction, and it draws into crime the people who would not necessarily always fall into it.

What I would say—I have said it prior to this—is that problem-solving courts are good if they are done well, and I would hope that we do not get too prescriptive about what kind of person is in front of us and categorise them as a domestic abuse or a substance abuse case. Often people have complex and chaotic lives with lots of different things going on. I would hope that a problem-solving court done well might have a category that they call a substance-abuse court, but be equipped to deal with something such as mental health as well.

I practised as a barrister for some time and I know that often clients, like I had before me, have issues behind what is apparent from the offence, which could go unseen unless probed. I spoke to a colleague earlier today and he explained to me that there are some 300,000 people in the UK right now who are indebted to a loan shark. You will never see the chaos behind someone’s life from a simple shoplifting offence. You need to be able to explore that. If problem-solving courts and pre-sentence reports are done well, in line with the new probation reforms, this should become clear and we should be able to help people with multiple needs before the courts.

Phil Bowen: To add to that, I understand that the current plans in the Ministry of Justice are to pilot those three types of models, but as all the models are drawn up, there is an awareness that people who would be eligible for substance misuse court are likely to have co-occurring mental health needs, and those would need to be addressed at the same time. The substance misuse court that currently operates in Belfast and the drugs court that currently operates in Glasgow recognise the complexity of people’s substance misuse and other needs, and seek to address them.

It is pretty clear, from what I have seen, in existing practice and what the Ministry of Justice is beginning to develop, that there is a broad awareness that it may be a trigger for intervention that vulnerable women are identified as at risk of custody, but there will be a recognition and services targeted at a range of their complex needs, one of which almost invariably will be mental health. That is very much at the heart of what the Ministry proposes, and we support that.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q A final question about limiting the use of child remand: do you think the provisions in the Bill go far enough?

Adrian Crossley: We welcome the addition of the new statutory duty clause for courts that requires them to consider the welfare and best interests of the child. We think that is a positive part of the Bill. It would be nice if it could go further. Seeing custody as something to keep people safe is not correct, but there is broad support, as far as I can tell, from people with an interest in youth justice for this change. I know some of my colleagues would like it to go further.

Adrian Crossley: I can only add that we have seen a substantial reduction in custodial sentences for youths over the last 10 years or so. We welcome efforts to encourage rehabilitation and use it absolutely as a last resort. I think it goes far enough.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Q I would like to ask about the extension of categories of positions of trust. We have all been appalled by the way that some individuals have abused those positions, as football coaches, in gymnastics, in children’s homes or in the Catholic Church and other religious settings.

Currently, as I understand, clause 45 would extend those definitions and include anyone aged over 18 who supervises or works with 16 and 17-year-olds. I know from personal experience with my own family that, often, older children at a dance school, perhaps over 18, often chip in to help with tuition and coaching. In some cases, they may even be in the same class at school as a 17-year-old who is part of that dance academy. I wonder whether there could be difficulties in situations such as that. Indeed, we also remove the right to give consent from 16 and 17-year-olds who may find that infringes on their ability to choose who to have a relationship with. Perhaps Mr Crossly might be most appropriate to respond first.

Adrian Crossley: The first point to know is that affording some protection in this area is absolutely imperative. We have seen abuse of trust that has led to not just inappropriate relationships—that is not what we are dealing with. We are dealing with sometimes highly vulnerable children who are sexually abused. In order to make an inroad into dealing with that sort of offending, we need to get to the crux of how it comes about. All too often, positions of trust can allow a perpetrator to hide in plain sight—not only that, they make the person who is abused feel partially responsible and incapable of speaking out. The perpetrator recruits the trust of the people nearest and dearest, including their parents.

While I appreciate that there may be some difficulties in the administration of this issue, that will not unnecessarily impinge upon the movement of people and their enjoyment of their leisure, I do not put that value at naught—absolutely not. I do see, at the other end of this, we have a very real risk, which has existed pervasively throughout our society for a long time. I think the extension into the position-of-trust model starts to move away from identifying it as in small pockets of society and to see it as the modus operandi of some perpetrators of crime. I think its broadness is important and the clause as it stands is sufficient.

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[The Chair]

Let us try Councillor Caliskan again.

Councillor Caliskan: Hopefully you can hear me now. I agree with what David said about the pilots, and it will be interesting to see the outcomes. The direct comparison is to domestic violence homicide reviews, where there can be very clear learning; and being able to learn, as a system of multiple agencies, where you might have been able to intervene earlier to stop something helps us to reduce crime in the future.

The issue with offensive weapons homicide reviews is that the evidence shows that somebody with an offensive weapon may not necessarily know their victim. You can take knife crime, for example, and compare it with domestic violence. In most cases of domestic violence, the victim and the perpetrator would know each other; that is not necessarily the case—in fact, most often is not the case—when it comes to knife crime.

I think it will be interesting to see the outcome of the pilots, but we have to be careful that we are not just creating additional burdens on agencies and that we have clear criteria and pathways for learning. Also, who will be the owner of the outcomes? Who will be responsible for being able to implement some of those lessons learned? I think that level of detail is probably missing from the Bill, so I wait to see the outcome of the pilots.

Alison Hernandez: One of the challenges around domestic homicide reviews is the lengthy delay from, obviously, when the incident happened to when the review is completed. Often, the challenge we have is that people have moved on and some of the corporate learning from it is not actually kept well within the organisation. So I think that that accountability around this trial would be really helpful, to be clear. There are opportunities around things like local criminal justice boards and there are opportunities through police and crime commissioners of actually holding on to this as part of something that we have to report on. So I think it would be good to look at that accountability to make sure it does not become a paper exercise and is not really utilised in decision making.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q I have just one question, about youth remand. I want to ask what assessments people have made about the remand to local authority accommodation for children and, in particular, for Councillor Caliskan, what constraints she feels that she or her authority has in offering such accommodation.

Councillor Caliskan: The burden of finding alternative accommodation is really about the fact that you are competing. You are competing because you may have victims of domestic violence that the local authority also needs to find accommodation for. So it is about limited resources. It does happen already: they will be rare occasions, but there may be examples where a young person needs to be relocated because they may have been involved in county lines or gang activity. But it is not simple and it is not just about relocating that individual—

[The Chair]

Councillor, I am very sorry to interrupt you. Is it possible to bring the mouthpiece closer to your mouth? We are really struggling to hear you.

Councillor Caliskan: How is that? Is that better? I will hold it.

[The Chair]

Let us try.

Councillor Caliskan: Hopefully you can hear me a bit clearer. The other point I was going to make is that it is not as simple as just relocating an individual. It is often a family that you have to relocate, and there are additional processes associated with that. Examples of issues are employment for the parents and the tenure of accommodation. If they own their own property, relocating them becomes more complicated. The picture is complicated, as you might expect. This is possible; local authorities do do it, but it takes multi-agency working and it requires a real bespoke approach depending on the individual and the family that you are trying to support.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Do Alison or David have any insights? I imagine not, but if they do I am happy to hear from them.

David Lloyd: All I would add—I am sure Members will be very much familiar with this—is that probably the vast majority of our criminals are under the age of 25 and a huge number of them are under 18. In Hertfordshire a couple of years ago, three quarters of our murders—we have very few—were committed by people under the age of 18. So in many ways we need to get how people are being remanded right. There are greater rights that children would rightly expect and have, but that does not mean to say that some of our most serious criminals are not children. Getting that balance right is difficult.

Councillor Caliskan: If I might add, there are good examples throughout the country where youth offender services are intervening at an early stage that not only supports individuals not to reoffend but provides a family approach, supporting siblings who may be at risk of being involved in criminal behaviour. That early intervention makes a real difference, so as local government we would look to see how such public health approach-led practice could be rolled out more consistently across the country.

[The Chair]

Commissioner Hernandez, do you have anything you want to add?

Alison Hernandez: Just one point in relation to youth remand. The challenge in helping young people and getting that right is the gap between arrest and conviction. With the courts backlog there is at the moment, that can be a long gap, and one of the challenges is that sometimes you cannot work with that young person until they get to the point of conviction. I just wanted to flag that up, but that is more about charge to conviction than remand and awaiting.

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[The Chair]

It is, thank you very much—sorry about that. I call Bambos Charalambous.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q I have a question about minimum-term sentences. We have a situation whereby if a young person commits an offence when they are under 18, but there is a delay in their coming to court and being convicted, they are then treated as an adult. What are your thoughts on that? Is that an opportunity missed in the Bill?

Stephanie Roberts-Bibby: Absolutely. We would say that children who commit offences as children should be sentenced as children, and that, where possible, the court should take into account the age and maturity of the child at the time of the offence. I know that HMCTS has been working tirelessly—particularly at the moment with the covid pandemic—to make sure that children’s cases are held promptly and before their 18th birthdays.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Q More generally, what are your thoughts on the length of sentences for children set out in part 7 of the Bill?

Stephanie Roberts-Bibby: We strongly believe that when the offence was committed as a child, that should be reflected in the length of the sentence, so they should be sentenced accordingly. We appreciate the logic for some of the tapering proposed in the Bill, but we feel that it fails to recognise that all children, who were under 18 at the time of the offence, had a distinct set of rights and vulnerabilities, and that the nature and length of time with which children and young people’s development takes place needs to be reflected. Indeed, evidence points firmly to brain development continuing up until the age of 25.

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q Do you support the introduction of secure schools?

Stephanie Roberts-Bibby: We wholeheartedly support the introduction of secure schools. We very much welcome the Government’s proposal to open the first secure school at Medway and we look forward to a further secure school as part of the Government’s commitment to an alternative to secure accommodation for children. We have been working closely with Oasis, which was announced as the provider of the first secure school. It is a very strong academy trust and will offer a different operating model from the secure environments that currently exist. While there is some great practice that takes place across the secure estate, we know from the data about the outcomes for children who have been in the current secure estate that those outcomes are poor and that further offending continues.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

Q Some witnesses such as child witnesses and people who are particularly vulnerable take part remotely in hearings. What are your thoughts on the technology currently in place in courts to enable that to happen? What dangers do you see in hearings with remote witnesses and the impression that juries may form of them when they are not physically in court?

Derek Sweeting QC: I think the first part of the question is: what technology have we got in place at the moment?

When the pandemic struck, and once we got back in particular to jury trials in the Crown court, we did see the roll-out of CVP—Cloud Video Platform—which very few of us knew was under development at the time. That was vital to allowing work to resume in many jurisdictions. We have also got a new system on the way, so the technology is improving all the time.

The second part of the question is really about how satisfactory is remote participation by the witness or others in court proceedings, and I think it really prompts the question, if we can do it, whether we should. That is the point—that fact that we can is not really a reason for necessarily doing it. I think it is absolutely clear that proceedings in future will probably involve a hybrid, with some witnesses attending remotely where that is appropriate. That has to be judicially managed. I think for some hearings it is pretty clear that everything could be done remotely, particularly administrative hearings. But in hearings that are serious in their nature because they will result in the final disposition of a case and so on, there is a much greater argument for ensuring that all of the participants and all of the evidence start on the basis that if evidence can be given in person, it should be. Thought should then be given to what is unnecessary to have in person and what could be dealt with remotely.

It is an area where we are finding our way. The Bar Council has just issued a statement with the Bars of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and of course England and Wales, which I represent, which actually makes that point. It says that there are many aspects of a remote hearing that are not satisfactory, in the sense that they are not as good as having everybody in the room—the old model, where you get two teams together with a referee and you have an adversarial contest. But that model anyway is something that we need to think about as we go forward.

There is plainly a use for more remote, but I think the profession would like some guidance as to what the parameters are for when we should be remote, what the starting position is and when it is appropriate, and only appropriate, to be in person.

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q I will be brief. There has been some suggestion this afternoon that there is no need for changes to the law, because protests should be managed in part by winning hearts and minds. What we know from the public, and what we have heard from the police, is that especially when windows are smashed, paint poured over people and in really disruptive protests, it is very difficult to be winning hearts and minds first in those circumstances. Do you agree that the nature of protests and the antics of protesters that we are seeing now results in and rewards a change and an update of the legislation that we have in place?

Derek Sweeting QC: The two types of conduct that you have just described are in themselves likely to be criminal offences, so there is nothing new about that. Has protest changed in its nature? I think we have certainly heard some evidence that, particularly with social media, the way in which protests can be arranged makes it much more difficult for them to be managed. I think there is some public concern about that. The measures contained in the Bill, particularly in relation to noise levels and serious disruption to and impact on persons in the vicinity, raise a legitimate question about whether it goes a bit too far, particularly in relation to what “significant” means and who has to take that decision on the ground. You ask whether things have changed, and I think you might look at this and say that almost every suffragette protest would have been caught by the proposed legislation.