Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord has just said. I was moved to speak to the amendment having recently watched the six films on Channel 4 about the staff on First Great Western. It was brought to my attention—although I should have known it—that there was a lady guard or train manager on a train going from Paddington to Swansea. She went the whole way and was by herself. The train was invaded by drunks at Paddington, Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport and Cardiff. They got off at one place, another lot got on, and they got more and more drunk as the train went on. She had no means of defending herself whatever; I think it was only her good sense of humour that got her through. Other films showed people manning ticket barriers by themselves and being fearfully abused by people who were offering violence and that sort of thing.

That caused me to wonder about transport workers who work alone. If you are driving a bus in north London on a Friday night—I do not advise you to be a passenger—some people’s behaviour can be quite awful. We expect public servants to take that. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, we sit here in comparative safety and peace, but I know from my time on the police authority that going around big cities on Friday and Saturday nights is an appalling position in which to be, especially during the small hours. I suppose that policemen cannot be offended by obscenities and threats of violence, but I am sure that many staff are very much frightened by them.

When I was coming to your Lordships’ House at the beginning of the week, on Monday, I was standing on the Bakerloo line platform at Paddington, where there was a relatively young lady who was the Bakerloo line duty manager. A man who looked as if he was drunk and had been to the races—the camel coat was the sign—was abusing her with the most awful obscenities, waving a stick and threatening to punch her, and all sorts of things. Yet she was down there in the station, absolutely alone; there was nobody else to whom she could turn for support.

What I want to know, and what I would like the Minister to mention in his reply, is whether the penalties really fit the crime. Is it enough to fine people £50 when the magistrate or court sits on a Tuesday morning, when everybody is sober and fairly well behaved? There should be an exemplary punishment. I am not in favour of shutting a lot of people up in prison, but there is scope for very substantial periods of community service. If they have to be served on Saturday and Sunday—or, more particularly, on Sunday, clearing up the mess of the night before—it is all well and good. If those people can be taken off the streets for a fair period of time, it would send a message not only to them but to the people with whom they associate.

In the peaceful town where I live—at least, I think that it is peaceful—fairly recently, a person racially abused a bus driver, assaulted him and broke his glasses. In that case, the court sent him to prison, though not for very long. It needs to be ingrained in people’s minds that if you assault somebody who is doing a public duty, particularly when that person is alone, you need to be dealt with more severely. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will have something to say about how that penalty can be toughened up.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 56N. It would be particularly helpful and appropriate for workers in the licensed trade. I currently work with producer companies, but declare an interest as a former chief executive of the Portman Group, where I also worked with licensees in both the on-trade and the off-trade. I am aware that vulnerability to assault is a live and worrying issue among this group of people, who have already been flagged up as a group for concern by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. The public are not generally aware that this is one of the issues of concern to people in the licensed trade, because it does not get any attention or media coverage. On the contrary, coverage about alcohol-related violence and anti-social behaviour tends to portray licensees as the bad guys for serving underage customers or drunks, or for provoking violence just by being there. The truth is that only a very small proportion of licensees are guilty of such offences as serving underage customers; the vast majority are scrupulously and professionally operating responsibility schemes such as proof of age ID to abide by the law and do the right thing. Yet, all too often, they are the victims of a backlash by violent customers for doing so.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to the survey from the Association of Convenience Stores, which was conducted only in August this year—so it is very recent and up to date. That survey revealed that 51% of retailers reported being a victim of verbal or physical abuse in the previous three months during the course of their work. When you match that up with the shopworkers’ union survey data, which suggested that refusing to sell age-restricted goods such as alcohol is a flashpoint for violence and abuse in 30% of cases, you can see how important this new measure would be for the licensed trade. Of course, it is not just a problem for the off-trade; the National Pubwatch scheme reports that pub licensees and their bar staff, as well as door staff, face a great deal of hostility when they are just doing their jobs. Indeed, National Pubwatch recently ran a campaign called “Court not Caution” to draw attention to the extent to which assault against their members was often ignored or seen to be dismissed by the police, who often seem to caution people for really quite serious incidents. This is leading to an undesirable loss of confidence in the criminal justice system. In one case a licensee had been smashed in the face with a glass but the offender was simply cautioned—never mind a £50 fine. The licensee subsequently suffered mental trauma and had to leave the trade and her livelihood. I believe the offence proposed by this amendment would be proportionate and consistent with the existing offence of assaulting a police officer and I urge the Government to give it the most serious consideration.

[Lord Condon (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interest in policing. I am sympathetic to the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has moved the amendment and why it has been supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins. However, I fear the real mischief they and we might seek to address is not the absence of suitable offences but the absence of action by, perhaps, police, prosecutors and sentencers. There is a range of assault offences already on the statute book that is more than adequate to cover the challenges that noble Lords have raised, such as common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and aggravated assault if there is a racial element. There are more than adequate offences on the statute book to deal with this challenge. The real mischief is the absence of action, the overuse of cautioning or the overly lenient sentencing around these offences—