Criminal Justice: Anonymity

Lord Dear Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The College of Policing guidelines on the relationship with the media are currently under review. A number of the points raised during this Question would merit submission to that review.

[Lord Dear (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned apologies and the machinery for handling police complaints, but frankly, that does not go far enough. If I correctly sense the mood of your Lordships’ House, while all of us perhaps understand that there is some advantage on some occasions to publicising the identity of a person subject to inquiry, that is massively and frequently outweighed by the considerable reputational damage not only to those already in the public eye—public figures, if one likes—but to those who hitherto enjoyed anonymity. Is the Minister willing to explore with me and others introducing legislation at the earliest opportunity to prevent personal identification until the preferment of a charge by the police?

[Lord Bates]

That specific idea was raised by the Home Affairs Select Committee in one of its recommendations. As the noble Lord will know better than most, it gives rise to particular issues and difficulties when applied across the board in all cases. But it is certainly something we should look at, and there will be legislative opportunities, most notably in the Police and Criminal Justice Bill, to consider such issues further.