Rape Victims: Disclosure of Evidence

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

My hon. Friend makes an important point in an extremely impressive way. The whole House is united in wanting to see the country make more progress in prosecuting and convicting for rape in a more effective way, because, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) says, it is an absolutely heinous crime and there is huge space for us to improve. However, we have to be mindful, not least in the light of very recent highly publicised cases, of the damage when things go wrong, as in the case of Liam Allan, where lives and personal lives are ruined as a result of failures in the disclosure system and cases collapse at the last minute. That is a terrible outcome for absolutely everyone. I impress on the House that underpinning this proposal is a desire of the police to improve the understanding of what they are requesting so that consent is better informed.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Mother of the House, Harriet Harman.

[Ms Harman]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I agree with the way this was put by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and I agree about just how serious the problem is. Let me tell the House about an email I received this morning from a young woman I know. I did not know she had been sexually assaulted. She said, “Six months ago, I was seriously sexually assaulted by a complete stranger. Two months after the assault, the police demanded full access to my phone, including my Facebook and Instagram passwords, my photos, stretching back to 2011, notes, texts, emails and the full history of 128 WhatsApp groups and individuals’ conversations stretching back over five years. I had no prior or subsequent contact with my attacker. I lie awake at night worrying about the details of private conversations with friends, boyfriends, business contacts, family that are now in the hands of the police. It is a gross intrusion into my privacy and theirs. I feel completely as if I am the one on trial.”

We all know, as the Minister has said, that disclosure is a problem, but we also know that there is massive under-reporting of rape cases. We also know that one of the problems in rape cases is that the victim is attacked in court and put on trial herself. The “Digital device extraction” document that has been issued today says quite simply, “Give us all your devices. We will download and review all the material, including deleted material, so that we can give it to the suspect and use it in the trial”. I know the Minister is committed to justice for victims as well as for defendants—I totally accept his good faith in this matter—so I implore him not to dig in and say that this is a good thing. There is a real problem out there that has been exposed, and he really needs to take action on it.

[Mr Hurd]

The Mother of the House is entirely right to state that a huge and complex raft of problems underlies this issue, and to point out that in the past there have been—but I hope not in future—failings in how the police used their powers and fulfilled their duties and responsibilities in this area. One thing from which I take encouragement is the police leadership’s candour in recognising that at the heart of this is a problem of culture in the police, and a need for them to take disclosure more seriously and not see it as an administrative bolt-on.

The guidance could not make it more explicit that complainants’ mobile telephones should not be examined as a matter of course, and that where they are, the level of extraction should be proportionate. The guidance makes that clear, and we expect the police to follow it. The Mother of the House makes good points about the workings of the courts in this area, and that is a priority for both Ministers who flank me—the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins).