Policing and Crime Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 12th December 2016 Lords Chamber

The amendment ensures that the victims’ rights are upheld and that, in these limited circumstances, they are kept safe from further harm. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 185 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for all the reasons he has explained so eloquently, even though pushed to deliver them very quickly. I shall be much briefer.

If someone has been sexually assaulted by a complete stranger and has then reported the details to the police, it is clearly important that when the police then interview potential suspects they do not under any circumstances, whether the potential offender has been charged or not, disclose the identity of the victim to such suspects. In the past, perhaps, this would not have been so vital, but today if the attack has been carried out by a sexual predator, the availability of the internet, Facebook and all the other many ways of identifying where a victim lives will inevitably mean that the attacker can continue to harass their victim via all or any of these means. Indeed, I am sure noble Lords will have read many harrowing stories of just such instances—we have heard one or two of them already—where the named victim has ultimately been forced to leave the area and resettle in a completely different, new part of the country, changing their names too.

The noble Lord’s amendment is vital. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to accept it in its entirety.

[Viscount Hailsham]

My Lords, I am conscious that your Lordships want to vote on Amendment 187, so I shall be brief, but I have to say that this proposal is, to my way of thinking, one of the most unjust that I have heard in your Lordships’ House for some time. It is worth identifying what it says. I shall come to the proviso in a moment, but what it says that somebody who is accused of rape is not to know the name of the accuser—the complainant. For that matter, somebody who is accused of actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm is not to know the name of the accuser or of the witnesses. I ask rhetorically: how on earth can a defendant or his representatives prepare his case for trial without knowing the name of the accuser or the witnesses? After all, they may not have been there. They may be notorious liars. There may be lots of other reasons to distrust their integrity.

The substantive clause here precludes the police from giving the name of the victim or the witnesses to the accused person. That is curiously reminiscent of the procedure underlying lettres de cachet in pre-revolutionary France, as described in A Tale of Two Cities. Let us look at the proviso, because it needs a bit of probing. The proviso in subsection 1(b) of the proposed new clause is so far as,

“non-disclosure would not impact on … a new trial”.

Who is to judge whether it impacts on a fair trial? I can tell noble Lords from the language of the proposed new clause that it is to be the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. So the police or the Crown Prosecution Service, who are party to the procedure, who are making the allegations, will judge whether it is fair to disclose the identity of the victim or the witness. How can that possibly be fair? What procedure is there in the proposed new clause for the accused person to challenge that determination? There is none at all.

We are told, “Ah, the judge will let it in”, but the judge cannot when there is an absolute prohibition. There is no procedure here whereby the decision of the police officer or the Crown Prosecution Service can be challenged. Probing a little further, what about police statements? I am sure my noble friend knows full well that police statements have to be served on the defendant prior to trial so that they can prepare and understand their case. If the identity of the witness or the victim has to be redacted out of the statements, what possible purpose is there in serving the statements at all? One merely has to identify these things to see that this would be struck down, certainly by the courts. It is a clear contravention of the provisions in the convention now in domestic law in favour of a fair trial.

Incidentally, on proposed new subsection 1(c), regarding the protection of people, bail conditions can do that. There may be a case for strengthening bail conditions but there is absolutely no case for introducing a measure that will do a profound injustice in our courts. I hope my noble friend the Minister will give a robust response to this.