Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Dominic Grieve

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Lady will be aware that we are seeking to introduce many efficiencies into the system, including digital working, early guilty plea systems and better warning of witnesses. Some of those are in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, but others, as she will appreciate, are not. They lie with my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and the Court Service. There is a great drive for efficiency: efficiency delivers savings and in a time of austerity, there is no doubt that improving the efficiency of the Court Service and of the throughput of the criminal justice system is one of the highest priorities—both for me and, I know, for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Can anything be done to rectify a perceived imbalance in criminal cases where the person on trial has direct access to the barrister who is representing him while the victim, as a witness, has no direct access to the prosecutor? Victims sometimes feel that their case is not as fully understood by the prosecutor as it should be. Can anything be done about that?

[The Attorney-General]

There are limits to what is feasible, although it is also right to say to my hon. Friend that the previous practice, whereby the prosecuting counsel could have no contact whatever with the witness, is now at an end. There is now an opportunity for an introduction and an explanation of how the court process is likely to develop, which I think is a great improvement. That said, there should be no suggestion that a witness is being coached, which my hon. Friend will appreciate could undermine a prosecution case. Those two things have to be balanced. A point that was always made to me when I prosecuted was the absolute necessity of informing witnesses, introducing oneself to them and keeping them informed within the bounds of propriety and the court process about what is actually going on, including talking to witnesses who turn up to find that they are not needed because the defendant has pleaded guilty. It is important to explain that to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Julian Lewis and Dominic Grieve

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

To stick to the point that arises from the question that was initially asked, I can assure the hon. Lady that there is no difference of view between my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and myself on this matter. As she will be aware, in 2003, the previous Government introduced the power for magistrates to increase sentences as part of custody plus, but were never able to implement it because, I think, they were concerned about the rise in the prison population. There remains an issue of debate about the value of increasing those powers. It would undoubtedly put more cases into the magistrates courts, but at the same time it would run the risk of increasing the prison population. The problems remain much as they were under the previous Government. My right hon. and learned Friend has therefore taken the decision that it is best to keep this power in reserve, even though the way it is expressed at the moment is by no means perfect—it is linked to custody plus in the Criminal Justice Act 2003—and to consult thereafter on whether it could be brought into operation profitably to improve the working of the criminal justice system or might have to be replaced by a similar provision that was not linked or worded in the way that it is at present.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Is it correct that, on average, magistrates have imposed significantly longer sentences for offences committed in the context of the riots? If it is correct, does my right hon. and learned Friend welcome that, as I do, and will he confirm that magistrates are absolutely right to take the context in which certain offences are committed into consideration when determining sentences?

[The Attorney-General]

The courts always take the context in which an offence is committed into consideration in determining the appropriate sentence. Few people would disagree with the principle that it is a serious aggravating feature if an offence is committed in the midst of riotous assembly and general mayhem. As usual, if for any reason the courts have passed a sentence that is excessive or inappropriate in any way, it can be reviewed by the Court of Appeal. I am afraid that I cannot help my hon. Friend on the precise statistics. Quite apart from anything else, many cases are still coming into the courts in respect of behaviour and crime committed during the riots, and it is far too early to make a final assessment.

Ian Tomlinson

Debate between Julian Lewis and Dominic Grieve

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the CPS might have acted with complete propriety but that its actions have nothing to do with the delivery of justice in this case? Does he understand that to allow the findings of a pathologist who has previously found a victim of the Camden ripper in 2002 to have died of natural causes resulting from heart disease to trump the considered verdicts of two other pathologists is far from satisfactory? Is he more understanding than I am of the fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions can take the view that the findings amount to an irreconcilable disagreement between experts rather than between two experts and one incompetent who ought to be disregarded?

[The Attorney-General]

I fully understand my hon. Friend’s concerns, but at the risk of repeating myself, I must restate the key point. This is not just a disagreement between experts: it is about a key matter of fact that had to be established at the outset, which has been left completely unclear. On the basis of the facts as now stated, it does not lend support to there being a causal connection between the blow and the death. That might be a profoundly unsatisfactory state of affairs, but I simply say that the CPS has to go with the material that is available to it, and it cannot manufacture it or wish that something different had happened from what actually happened. From that point of view and bearing in mind my responsibility in this matter, in seeking to answer the House’s questions properly, I repeat that the CPS seems, from what I have been told, to have acted with complete propriety in investigating this matter.