Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

The rule of law is a fragile thing, even in a supposedly mature democracy such as ours. The police represent the thin blue line that, alongside our courts, exists to maintain that essential value. While I have spent a lifetime arguing against knee-jerk legislative responses, even to terrible crimes, when those same crimes expose genuine chasms in law and practice and the most heinous institutional dereliction of public duty, we as legislators would also be derelict not to respond. I beg to move.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, it is a genuine privilege to follow that eloquent introduction to this group of amendments by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. I make it absolutely clear from the outset that, for me, this is no competition between amendments: we are absolutely on the same page, in the same chapter and in the same book. In my view, it would be inexcusable for any Minister to reject these amendments on the grounds that they are not sufficiently well drafted.

The noble Baroness and I are both Back-Bench Members of your Lordships’ House; neither of us is a parliamentary draftsman. Yes, we are perfectly capable of drawing up a basic amendment or new clause and of obtaining advice elsewhere, as I am sure we both have. What we both trying to say, however, is that there needs to be a solution to the fear that now exists among young women about lone male police officers. It is a solution that the Government have to produce and that parliamentary counsel has to draft and put in a form that will be clear both to women and to the police.

Our feelings of sympathy for the family and friends of Sarah Everard are in no way diminished by the passage of time. Indeed, it is vital that we should keep this story running until we reach a satisfactory ending. If I may be forgiven for putting a personal slant on this, we are fortunate enough to have five daughters. One is a young professional woman, single, living with friends in a shared flat in Clapham, just like Sarah. She goes out with her friends or on her own and walks across the common, just like Sarah. She walks home when she feels like it and is obviously responsible in the way that she approaches her journey, just like Sarah. And she was brought up absolutely to trust the police, just like Sarah.

All those assumptions have been smashed on the ground as a result of this case. I am sure that we are not the only family who, for obvious reasons, sit up at night looking on Find My Friends, worried about the whereabouts of our children—although they tell us now that they are worried about our whereabouts and use Find My Friends for that purpose. We are genuinely concerned as they go about their lawful lives day and night. We have taught them the basic conventions of good self-protection and safety but, of course, one of the basic tenets of that domestic advice was that you can always trust a police officer: if something goes wrong and you can see a police man or woman, turn to them; they will see you right. We and they are now shocked to the core by the number of cases of police sexual misconduct that have come to light. This case is the very worst of the very worst, but it does not sit in a category all of its own. More than 70 incidents of police sexual misconduct, almost all by male police officers, have now come to light and been investigated to a greater or lesser extent.

Sarah Everard should, of course, still be alive and free to come and go as she wishes. In her death, she should not have to be remembered for the unspeakable things that happened to her, to which the noble Baroness referred—for the abuse of her person when alive and the desecration of her body in death. She must not be seen to have died in vain. It is our duty, in both Houses of Parliament, to take the appropriate steps to demonstrate to the world at large that Sarah Everard did not die in vain and that other young women—other women—will be protected from such events so far as is possible. That is our responsibility.