Child Abuse Offences (Sentencing)

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Monday 13th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mrs Moon. We have worked together on many other issues and it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today. I also thank the representative of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for comprehensively outlining all the issues that surround this very complex case. There are all sorts of arguments for and against virtually every aspect of it—it is not straightforward.

I will contribute a constituency perspective and, of course, a family perspective. On 1 October 2012, I was at home working on my iPad when I read a tweet that a five-year-old girl had disappeared after being seen climbing into a vehicle on the Bryn-y-Gôg housing estate in Machynlleth in Montgomeryshire. It is not unusual to get tweets like that, but there was something about that tweet that immediately gave me the sense that this was something serious. Within hours, the people of Machynlleth and the surrounding area had joined the search for five-year-old April, the daughter of Coral and Paul Jones, who live on the Bryn-y-Gôg estate. Over the following days, a huge number of volunteers and local and national organisations, as well as the police, formed the most intensive, widespread search for anybody or anything that I have ever seen in my life—it was just amazing. Five days later, a local man, Mark Bridger, was charged with abduction, murder and perverting the course of justice. In May 2013, Bridger was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The sentencing judge, rightly in my opinion, pronounced that he should never again be released from prison.

The death of April was an absolute tragedy for her family and friends, but it touched the entire nation. It was something that the whole of Britain became engaged with. There was a national focus on the town of Machynlleth. The search for April and the truly amazing response of the people of that small market town brought what seemed like the world’s media to Machynlleth. I spent several days there myself. Like everybody else, I found it really difficult to comprehend just what had happened and what April’s family would have been going through.

I pay tribute to April’s parents and her sister Jazz, who are with us in this Chamber today. They have made huge efforts to raise awareness of the widespread availability of pornographic and sexual images of children. They want to do everything they can to prevent other families from facing a similar tragedy and from going through the same pain that they have gone through and, no doubt, are still going through today. Their efforts have culminated in this debate in the House of Commons, after a petition raised by April’s family reached more than 100,000 signatures. For completeness, I will read out that petition, which is quite short:

“We the undersigned call on the prime minister to make all sex offenders remain on the register for life no matter the crime, for service providers and search engines to be better policed regarding child abuse images and harder sentences on those caught with indecent images of children.”

The petition can be divided into three calls for action. In preparation for this debate, I met Coral and Jazz Jones in Machynlleth 10 days ago. We talked through what they expected from the debate and what form an “April’s law” might take. The petition calls for legislation to be based on three objectives. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North addressed them all in her speech but, for myself and my constituency, I will repeat some of what she said.

The first objective, which is perhaps the most difficult to achieve, is cleaning up the internet. It should be our ambition to remove all sexual images of children from the internet. We know that the presence of those images is damaging, but removing them is not an easy or straightforward process, because the internet is technologically fast-moving and is not easy to control through legislation. However, the Government have a responsibility, which I think they take seriously—indeed, all Governments throughout the world have a responsibility —to do everything within their power to clean up the internet as far as is humanly possible.

Last week, we learned of a disturbing report, which has already been mentioned but certainly had a very big impact on me, that involved Facebook, a giant of the social media world. A BBC investigative team used the report button, the purpose of which is to highlight to Facebook any improper sexual images on its platforms. The BBC found that 80% of such images were not removed after being reported. There was simply an automated response, stating that the images did not breach community standards—whatever that means. Included were images of children in sexualised poses, pages aimed at paedophiles, and one image that appeared to be taken from a child abuse video. Astonishingly, instead of taking down all those images, Facebook reported the BBC for sharing them.

I cannot be certain of the precise detail of what happened in that case, but it seems beyond all belief. I understand that the images have now been removed, but what we want is for Facebook and every other social network operator, whether small or large, to be under a legal obligation always to take down such images, constantly to survey what appears on their social network platforms and, as far as possible, to report whoever puts them there to the police. We need a law that bans indecent and dangerous content and that ensures that action is taken against whoever instigates or permits it. It must make no difference whether the offender is a small company or is among the biggest companies in the world.

The second aim for what an “April’s law” should include is a stronger process for removing the names of sex offenders from the sex offenders register. I fear that an absolute ban would probably fall foul of human rights legislation, but as far as we possibly can, we must always put the protection of the public first. I do not consider myself to be sufficiently qualified to outline precisely what a process of deregistration might look like in order to satisfy human rights legislation and keep the public safe. However, it must always ensure that no name should ever be removed from the sex offenders list until and unless there is total certainty that the offender has reformed and will not repeat offend.

I ask the Minister whether it is possible to introduce rigour and certainty into the system to a greater extent even than now by establishing some sort of structure similar to a magistrates court structure to judge each individual case. The basis on which we should judge the suitability of a sex offender seeking removal from a sex offenders list is that we must always put first the safety of the public and of children.

The third policy is the importance of always putting sex offenders on the sex offenders list, or at least bringing them to court if the offence justifies it. This has already been covered in this debate, but we cannot have a position whereby police resources or pressure on the criminal court system result in offenders not being prosecuted. Sex offenders should always be prosecuted.

Two weeks ago, there was a report in The Guardian—again, this has already been referred to—on comments by Simon Bailey, the chief constable of Norfolk constabulary and the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection. He said that the police were struggling to cope with the huge number of criminals looking at indecent images of children online, and that they should focus their resources on high-risk offenders. That is not good enough. All offenders must be looked, not just high-risk offenders. How do we judge between a high-risk offender and a low-risk offender? They are all offenders.

I agreed with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, who wrote in response to the chief constable:

“As you will know, for many decades institutions have put children at risk because it was seen as too difficult, not a priority or resources were insufficient to keep them safe. I would not want to see the same happen over online child abuse.”

I absolutely agree with that. She also said:

“This raises some very serious concerns about the scale of online child abuse, about the level of resourcing the police have available for it, about the systems the police has in place to deal with this new and increasing crime and also about the priority being given to it by police forces.”

We regard child abuse as a hugely serious crime and I believe that it is still under-reported. Police forces throughout the country should make dealing with it an absolute priority. Anybody who is deemed to be a sex offender—albeit they might be described as a low-level offender—should be prosecuted.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

On the exploitation of children and police resource, I had reason to talk to Facebook not that long ago about an online bullying problem. Facebook made the not unreasonable point that a lot of this stuff is not necessarily on social media that is within UK control, but on foreign websites in jurisdictions about which we might have limited knowledge and over which we might have limited control. Would my hon. Friend comment on that point and whether he thinks we are suitably focusing on that source of imagery? It is a crime to look for child pornography on the internet, including for employees of the very platforms that we hope will rectify this matter. Does the law give them the power they need to police it themselves?

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I agree with him. The point I am trying to emphasise—I think it is something that most Members in this House believe—is that this is a growing crime. We are also becoming more aware of it, and it has probably been under-reported forever. We are starting to realise just how awful things have been.

This crime destroys young people’s lives forever and it destroys families. We all know what has happened in Machynlleth and the damage it has done at a personal level to the family concerned, but this crime is happening in other places in Britain at a different level. We cannot ever say that the resources are not there to prosecute; we cannot ever knowingly allow somebody to come off a sex offenders register until we are absolutely certain that they are no longer a threat; and we cannot ever allow a major company—no matter how big, how rich or how powerful it is—to adopt an approach to dealing with sex offenders that is different to anybody else’s approach.

UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

No one chooses to be a refugee. The women and men pouring across Syria’s borders are the innocent victims of a conflict in which the vast majority have played no part. In many cases, they flee because their towns have been pulverised, their children’s schools destroyed, their hospitals bombed and their supplies of food and water cut off. They have lost relatives. Many have been injured. Some have survived the first use of chemical weapons this century. Their suffering, inflicted on people who are no different from us in their desire for peace, security and freedom, is hard for any of us to imagine.

As hon. Members in all parts of the House have said, this is a humanitarian catastrophe with no end currently in sight. At stake are the lives of millions of innocent people and security in the middle east, all of which has an impact on us here in the UK. The question is: what can we do, as the United Kingdom, to address these problems? The answer, above all, as I made clear in my statement earlier today, and as my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have also explained, must be that we work to end the conflict. Her Majesty’s Government are using diplomacy and humanitarian aid to carry out that work, and are taking measures to protect the security of our own country.

The United Kingdom is taking a leading role in addressing this crisis. At the United Nations Security Council, we and our partners are urging Russia to work with us to end the conflict, and we are pressing for full and unfettered humanitarian access. As members of the core group of the Friends of Syria, we are instrumental in supporting a moderate opposition, without which there can be no political settlement in that country, only the murderous tyranny offered by Assad or the warped ideology of terrorist extremists and foreign fighters seeking to exploit the violence. In addition, we are saving countless lives through our humanitarian assistance.

Britain has indeed been leading the world in responding to the disaster. We are the second largest bilateral donor, after the United States. We are providing £600 million for the Syrian relief effort and to help neighbouring countries, which are supporting those who have sought refuge there, to meet the needs of those refugees and bolster their own security. This effort has united support across the House. Right hon. and hon. Members have rightly expressed their considerable concern, and I commend those on all sides of the House who have done much to raise the issue and keep the plight of innocent Syrians in our thoughts.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for taking an intervention. Her doing so allows me to say how much I appreciate the statement she is making today and the way in which it has unified the House on the significant part of her speech. That will be welcomed in Wales, where there is a long tradition and history of supporting peoples who are being displaced and threatened by humanitarian crisis.

[Mrs May]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his reference to the tradition in Wales of supporting people who are refugees from humanitarian conflicts.

Earlier this month a team of MPs, led by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), travelled to the Syrian border in Turkey to see how refugees there are being helped by humanitarian aid. The Select Committee on International Development also held a special oral evidence session focusing on the British response, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for his campaigning on this issue. It is clear that everyone in the House understands the obligation this country and the international community has towards helping the Syrian people during this time of great crisis.

Last week the Prime Minister was clear that given the scale of the current refugee crisis, with more than 11 million Syrians in dire need of humanitarian aid, the greatest need is in the region—that is where we can make the deepest impact. He was equally clear that, where there are particularly compelling cases of vulnerable people at grave risk, we will look at those cases. Earlier today, I announced to the House that, following consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in London, the Government will be launching a new programme to provide emergency sanctuary in the UK for particularly vulnerable displaced Syrians, including women and girls at risk, survivors of torture and violence, and children at risk or in need of medical care.

Oral Answers to Questions

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to tackle the organised grooming and sexual exploitation of children.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

16. What steps she is taking to tackle the organised grooming and sexual exploitation of children.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

This Government are absolutely committed to tackling child sexual exploitation. That is why I am leading a new national group on sexual violence against children and vulnerable people, which is taking urgent action to protect children, significantly improve support for victims and bring perpetrators to justice.

[Damian Green]

I am happy to echo my hon. Friend’s last point. I am pleased that justice has been served, following the long police activity that led to Operation Bullfinch, and that the perpetrators are now behind bars where they belong. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt, and I know that Thames Valley police are playing a significant role in ensuring that the police get better at dealing with this type of horrible crime.

[Glyn Davies]

Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Home Office is working with, and sharing knowledge with, the Welsh Government and the devolved Governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland to identify and eliminate the scourge of grooming and sexual exploitation throughout the UK?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right that that kind of work between different police forces is important. The national police working group on child abuse and investigation has representatives from Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish forces, while the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre works with colleagues across the UK in combating this particularly abhorrent crime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will know that the Government have laid out our position clearly. I suspect that the issue he mentions—what happens to the Human Rights Act and with this country’s relationship with the European Court—will be dealt with in debate at the general election.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

4. What steps she is taking to reduce benefit tourism.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The Home Office will tighten regulations to time-limit the right of unemployed European economic area nationals to reside and claim benefits to six months, unless they can prove they are looking for a job and have a genuine chance of getting one. The Department for Work and Pensions is also taking steps to tighten further its rules on access to benefits.

[Glyn Davies]

The Minister recently visited Wales to see at first hand the work that enforcement officers are doing to stop illegal workers. Will the Secretary of State use the forthcoming Immigration Bill to tackle illegal immigrants who are accessing services to which they are not entitled?

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. My hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration was pleased to be able to visit Wales to see this at first hand. We will indeed use the Immigration Bill better to regulate migrant access to benefits and public services. We will: get tougher on employers of illegal workers; prevent illegal migrants from obtaining driving licences; and require private landlords to make checks on prospective tenants. We will also further restrict access to social housing and restrict migrant access to benefits by tightening the habitual residence test and closing the loophole that currently allows migrants without a right to work here to access contributory benefits. With our European partners, we will also tackle free movement abuse and its impact on social welfare and public services, and we welcome the commitment by EU Ministers at last Friday’s meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council to finding EU-wide solutions to this problem.

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

Large numbers of health organisations have responded. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who I am delighted to have here with me, has said that she will write to the hon. Gentleman specifically on who those organisations are, and I am sure that she will do that very speedily.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the best way to deal with antisocial behaviour on the streets by drunks is strong action by the police and perhaps a few hours in the cells rather than piling extra tax on to responsible drinkers who are very often on low incomes?

[Mr Browne]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. In quite a lot of countries elsewhere in Europe, the price of alcohol is lower than it is here, or certainly low, and yet they do not have anything like the number of problems that we have in relation to antisocial behaviour linked to alcohol consumption. There is a role for the police, but there is a wider debate within society about how we consume alcohol and how we behave after we have consumed alcohol.

Abu Qatada

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The amount of legal aid available has been a matter for the Legal Services Commission. I am not aware of the complete sum that it has allowed in relation to this. I understand my hon. Friend’s and the public’s concerns, which is why, in a more general sense, setting aside this case, we want to ensure that we can deport and extradite people more quickly than we can do today, so that we do not have people sitting in these sort of circumstances.

May I correct something I said earlier in response to another of my hon. Friends, Mr Deputy Speaker? I believe I said that at every stage the British courts previously had found in favour of deportation. I understand that under the previous Government, at one stage, the Court of Appeal found against them on deportation, but that then went to a higher court, which found in favour of deportation. There was one judgment against deportation.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The content of today’s statement will come as a huge disappointment to hon. Members across this Chamber and to the constituents we represent. I had reassured my constituents that this man would be deported. We know that the law has been changed in Jordan, and I told my constituents that it had outlawed evidence gained by torture and that the deportation was very likely to go ahead. Can the Home Secretary tell me what I should say to my constituents? What certainty can I give them that this man, who should not be walking our streets, is going to be deported?

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend can tell his constituents that this Government are as determined as they ever have been to deport Abu Qatada and that this Government are doing everything they can to ensure that we achieve that aim. We are at one on this: we want Abu Qatada out of this country.

Child Abuse Allegations (North Wales)

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has chosen to take that tone. I know that he is keen to see the large-scale inquiry to which a number of Members have referred. I have explained why I think it important for the criminal investigation to run its course, and to be pursued without fear or favour. I assure him that what I, and the Government, want to do is ensure that we establish investigations, and that, if there are people who should be pursued for the purpose of prosecution, such a process then takes place. I have made that absolutely clear.

It is entirely true that there have been a number of instances, over the years and across the country, of different forms of child sexual abuse. We now see the online and on-street grooming of children, and a number of other variations of child abuse. What is so horrific is the extent to which that abuse has been taking place in our country and throughout our communities over the years.

There are various ways in which the police are investigating these matters and inquiries are taking place. In relation to the issue in north Wales, it is important for the police to be able to pursue any criminal investigations without fear or favour, taking those investigations, absolutely clearly, where the evidence leads them. That is what they should be doing, that is what they will be doing, and that is I believe the best way to bring justice to the victims.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Today’s statement concerned some of the most shocking incidents that I can remember occurring during my political life in Wales. Like others, I greatly commend the Prime Minister for the speed with which he established the urgent investigation.

It may well be true that we must have the wide-ranging inquiry to which several Members have referred. However, we do not want to lose sight of the fact that there is an issue in north Wales that must be dealt with comprehensively. We must ensure that those responsible are brought to book quickly, and that we do not lose this particular shocking issue in a wider investigation that will take a long, long time.

[Mrs May]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. As a number of other Members have pointed out, we need to ensure that the police are able to investigate, to do that speedily, and to ensure that anyone who should be brought to justice is indeed brought to justice.

Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I make no apology for the fact that our visa checks are more thorough and more secure than they were when the right hon. Gentleman was Home Secretary in the previous Government. His other point is simply wrong. If he had listened to what I said, he would have heard me quite deliberately quoting the longest queuing times. I am not trying to hide behind averages. I said that the longest queuing time was one and a half hours, and that that was unacceptable and we would seek to do better. I should also say that the use of average times was not invented by this Government; the previous Government did it as well.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Minister will know that everyone in the House—except perhaps those on the Opposition Front Bench—welcomes the steps that he is taking to improve efficiency in airports in order to move people through. Does he accept, however, that the absolute priority of the Government and the UK Border Force has to be national security?

Abu Qatada

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The only indication that has been given by the European Court is that it will meet in a matter of weeks to look at whether it accepts the referral—of course that is the first stage, and the Court may choose to reject it.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that greatly delayed justice is no justice at all, and that until the European Court stops wanting to interfere in matters that should be dealt with in a national court and until the great backlog of cases is reduced, the calls for withdrawal from the Court altogether will increase?