Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. However heinous the crime, however vile the accusation against an individual, unless they are treated as innocent until proven guilty, we undermine everything we believe in as a democratic society.

The big change that came after the release of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four—and Judith Ward for that matter—was the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which immediately started looking at 600 miscarriage of justice cases that had not received the sort of publicity that we had managed to engender in the three cases I just mentioned.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I wish to refer to one of those cases. The Cardiff Three, who were accused of a non-terrorism crime, suffered the same injustice and vilification, but eventually got some sort of justice.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. I recall that campaign very well. Although I was not centrally involved in it, I certainly supported it.

The question really goes back to the Minister. I intervened on him during his opening remarks to give him a chance—a double chance; not double jeopardy, but a double chance—to provide us with good reasons why he is introducing a provision that we, along with Liberty and many others, believe will fundamentally undermine much of what has been achieved through the Criminal Cases Review Commission and by the ability to overturn miscarriages of justice.

Justice can go wrong. The media can get it wrong. There can be a campaign of vilification that gets it wrong. We should not be too holier than thou in this country as we already have a considerable number of people held indefinitely under immigration law, and we have anti-terror laws that I believe are highly questionable in many ways when it comes to justice. I hope that the Minister will explain in his reply exactly how a serious campaign on a miscarriage of justice case would be dealt with in the future and how many more people could indeed be locked up for a long period for offences that they did not commit and could not have committed.

If amendment 95 is not accepted—I support the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington that the whole of clause 143 be deleted—I hope that the House of Lords will look at the provisions in forensic detail. Many of those who did such incredible work, including Baroness Helena Kennedy, in representing these causes and cases over many years, sit in the other place and I hope they will ensure that this legislation is fundamentally changed so that we recognise that mistakes can happen, that terrible injustices can take place and that unless we provide the opportunity and ability to remedy them, they will happen again and again and again. That is very dangerous in any democratic society.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that the Minister is sensitive to some of the issues that have been raised—not just in relation to cases that have already happened, but in relation to those that may happen in the future—and to the deep concern that is felt about the possibility that the “tilting” is part of some other ulterior agenda. This is certainly not something that we can allow to pass lightly, and I shall listen very carefully to what the Minister says.

[Hywel Williams]

I will support amendment 184, or, failing that, amendment 95.

Clause 143 in its present form marks a significant and hugely detrimental shift in the law which would make it far more difficult for individuals to gain compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment. Non-governmental organisations concerned with human rights, including the Committee on the Administration of Justice, as well as highly respected organisations such as Justice and Liberty, have expressed major anxieties about the clause. As the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) explained very eloquently, an individual who applies for compensation for a miscarriage of justice must currently demonstrate that a court could not have established beyond reasonable doubt that he or she was guilty of the offence. Clause 143, however, shifts the burden of proof to the individual, and compels that individual to prove that he or she is innocent of the offence. A miscarriage of justice would henceforth be proved to have taken place only if newly discovered facts showed beyond reasonable doubt that that person was innocent.

As Justice has pointed out, since 2006 section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 has provided the only avenue for individuals to obtain financial redress after miscarriages of justice have occurred. It is chilling to think that, had the proposed change in the law been in place at the time, none of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven or the Cardiff Three—I have some interest in that case, and indeed referred to it earlier—would have satisfied the innocence test.

Those infamous cases, of course, paved the way for the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The individuals involved won compensation because it was proved that the evidence that had been brought against them was flawed, and that a jury could not have found them guilty had the case been retried. As was made clear by the hon. Member for Foyle, the justice system of England and Wales is unlike the Scottish system in that a case cannot be found to be “not proven”, although there have been arguments about that position.

In the notorious cases that I have just listed, the rule of thumb for the awarding of compensation was always that the individuals would receive the amount that they would have earned had they been working during the time when they were wrongfully imprisoned. The purpose of that was to ensure that they would not be impoverished when they were released. It would be wicked indeed to deny individuals that compensation when the justice system has gone wrong.

Under the current law, it is already exceptionally difficult to persuade the criminal Court of Appeal to review new evidence. For cases to qualify, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is required to apply section 13(1) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, which provides that individuals must satisfy a “real possibility test”. Arguably, both the Criminal Cases Review Court and the Court of Appeal adopt an excessively strict interpretation of this test. They restrict reviews to new evidence that was not available at the time of the trial or appeal, which means in practice that evidence that was available at the time of the trial or appeal cannot be considered, even in cases in which it was suppressed by the police. Given how difficult it is to get cases referred to the Court of Appeal under both the “real possibility test” and the need for fresh evidence, it is harsh indeed that the Government are attempting further to restrict people’s ability to gain compensation. Innocence is far too high a test and would be virtually impossible to prove after many years, which is when such cases are usually heard.

If this matter is not pressed to a successful Division this afternoon, I sincerely hope that Members in the other place will apply the most stringent attention to the clause. My noble Friend Lord Wigley will certainly do so.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called, Mr Speaker. Thank you for letting me speak in the debate. I appreciate that my role as a shadow law Minister means that it is an indulgence to allow me to speak. I appreciate it.

I have been in the House for eight years and I thought that I was unshockable, but the way in which the Government are seeking to amend section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to redefine a miscarriage of justice is truly shocking. They wish to change it so that, if and only if newly discovered facts show beyond reasonable doubt that the person is innocent, there has been a miscarriage of justice. Nothing less than that will do. Only in those circumstances can someone be given compensation.

I am sure that the Minister will have noted, as anyone else watching the debate will have done, that no one has yet spoken in favour of clause 143, not even the Minister himself yet. If the matter is not dealt with this afternoon, I hope that there will be the opportunity to deal with it in another place. We need to marshal our forces, because the essence of our liberal society is threatened.

The Government’s arguments for introducing an innocence test—there are many arguments; I want to concentrate on the Government’s justification—are, first, that it is needed for the sake of clarity; and, secondly, that it will save money. Neither of those arguments is remotely convincing. Let me turn to the first, about clarity.

The law at the moment is perfectly clear. Three recent authoritative judgments have rejected the innocence test as an affront to the presumption of innocence. The Supreme Court did so in the case of Adams in 2011, in which Lady Hale said:

“a person is only guilty if the state can prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt...He does not have to prove his innocence at his trial and it seems wrong in principle that he should be required to prove his innocence now.”

That was reiterated in the High Court in the case of Ali earlier this year. There was an attempt to widen the definition, but that attempt was well and truly quashed by the High Court. This summer, moreover, the European Court of Human Rights, in the case of Allen v. the UK, made it perfectly clear that any legislation that calls into question the innocence of an acquitted person would be a breach of article 6(2) of the European convention on human rights on the presumption of innocence.

Therefore, the law is clear. That law has been reiterated by our own Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has been able to assert that

“it is now clear beyond doubt”

that the proposed new test in clause 143 is incompatible with the right to be presumed innocent in article 6(2). Therefore, rather than clarifying the law, it seems that the Government are having a pitched battle with the settled, established law.

The second argument is about saving money. The Bill’s own impact assessment reveals the expected savings to be negligible. According to that MOJ assessment—the Minister looks puzzled; it is on page 4—the effect of the clause will be to reduce by two per annum the number of judicial reviews of Secretary of State decisions, which it estimates will save around £100,000 per annum. Therefore, for the sake of saving £100,000 per annum, we will be trading in the centuries-old principle of the presumption of innocence. The courts have rejected an innocence test not out of some quibbling legalistic technicality. They have rejected it because it is a cornerstone of a fair justice system. We have a fair justice system and a free society where it is for the state to prove guilt, not for the individual to prove innocence.

The reason for that is obvious. Proving a negative is very difficult and the burden of proof it would place on the individual is extremely onerous. It is for the state with all its resources to make the case of a person’s guilt. The presumption of innocence applies before an acquittal. As Lord Phillips said in the Adams case, any test that requires innocence

“will deprive some defendants who are in fact innocent and who succeed in having their convictions quashed on the grounds of fresh evidence from obtaining compensation. It will exclude from entitlement to compensation those who no longer seem likely to be guilty, but whose innocence is not established beyond reasonable doubt. This is a heavy price to pay for ensuring that no guilty person is ever the recipient of compensation”.

Mesothelioma (Legal Aid Reform)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams (in the Chair)]

We now come to the debate on the effect of legal aid reform on mesothelioma victims. I call Bill Esterson—you may speak seated, if you find that helpful.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Williams. I will stand, but it is kind of you to make the offer. It is a pleasure that the debate is being held under your chairmanship. It is an important debate, which I am sure that you and Members in all parts of the House appreciate—so far, it is mostly Opposition Members, but I know that Government Members have also indicated an interest in the subject.

I requested this debate because the Government have said that they will review the support given to victims of mesothelioma and their families following the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which includes industrial diseases along with personal injury in measures to end no win, no fee litigation in the courts. The Government say that they want to stop fraudulent claims, but I believe that there is no evidence of fraudulent claims by those suffering from mesothelioma. That is the basis of this debate.

The House of Lords tried to amend the Act to exclude victims of mesothelioma from the changes to no win, no fee legislation, but the amendments made by the Lords were rejected by the Government. Instead, the Government said that they would hold a review and consider how to support victims and their families. So far, Ministers have not said what that review will consist of or when it will be held. Victims and their families need to know. When the Minister responds, he should tell the House what will happen in the review so that those suffering from that terrible disease can know and compare their evidence, so as not to lose out as a result of the end of no win, no fee.

The Government decided to include industrial diseases along with road traffic accidents in stopping no win, no fee. The implication of the change is that mesothelioma claimants are part of the compensation culture. That may well affect some personal injury claims, including whiplash, but mesothelioma victims are clearly not making spurious claims. When my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) put that point to the Minister on 17 April, she asked him to give one example of a spurious mesothelioma claim. The lack of an answer made the point that there are none.

Let us remind ourselves of what mesothelioma does. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said in the debate in April that

“one fibre could go into someone’s lung and lie dormant for many years, but when it becomes active there is no alternative—that person suffers horribly and then they die. There is no cure, no remission and no element of survival; they die…Everybody who gets mesothelioma will die an agonising death.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2012; Vol. 543, c. 279.]

The idea that those suffering from mesothelioma could be involved in fraudulent claims is absurd and disgraceful.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

A great deal of education and training is delivered in prisons now, but it needs to be improved; it is patchy. We are not losing our focus on making sure that the basic problems of literacy and numeracy are tackled, let alone other further education delivered, and we hope to make sure that the contracts for provision of education and training services are of universally good quality.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) has a ten-minute rule Bill which would make it mandatory for those sentenced to two years or more to undertake a relevant offender management programme before being considered for early release. Do the Government intend to take those proposals forward?

[Mr Clarke]

We sentence people to prison terms as reparation for the wrong that they have done to their victims and society, and when they have completed their sentence we release them. Under existing rules they may be released from prison halfway through the named sentence, but they are on licence thereafter, subject to recall, and that has to be made meaningful. I do not want to add to the number of people in prison who are serving beyond any sentence that they have had imposed upon them for the crime that they committed, but who are waiting to go through some loophole which shows that they qualify for release, not least because it is very difficult to organise true opportunities for prisoners to be able to satisfy such requirements.