Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his usually thorough and precise introduction. I will confine my remarks to the order that relates to Crown Courts, and I say at the outset that I welcome it as an initial step. However, I share, almost word for word, the views and reservations just expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay.

I chair National Trading Standards, which is responsible, on behalf of BEIS, for delivering national and regional consumer protection enforcement activities in England and Wales. Scotland has similar but distinct arrangements. The teams we fund are located within local authorities and use local authority trading standards powers to investigate and bring prosecutions against organised crime groups, which perpetrate consumer scams targeting often vulnerable consumers, and which, as a side-effect, thereby undermine legitimate businesses and traders. Clearly, the objective is to bring the perpetrators to court. A typical example would be Allan John Coutts, a rogue trader who ran a tarmac repair business across England and Wales, operating under several trading names to avoid detection. He used a lorry specifically designed to resemble an official vehicle to cold-call customers to obtain driveway repair work. The work itself was often of very poor quality; sometimes he simply dumped loose chippings on existing driveways with no solution to hold them in place. He demanded cash for this work, often accompanying people to their banks to “help” them withdraw the cash. Very rapidly, the customers would then discover that the five-year guarantee that he offered was worthless, and Coutts and their money had vanished. When it came to court, Anthony Rees from the NTS investigation team received a judge’s commendation for his work on bringing Coutts to justice, and Coutts himself received a prison sentence of five and a half years. That was a good outcome, but justice needs to be seen to be done.

It used to be the case that the staple content of local news media was the court reporter, who would take down a shorthand note of the remarks of a judge in passing sentence. However, local news media are in decline, and, even if they have reporters, often can no longer send them to the Crown Court to cover the end of anything but the most high-profile trials. However, it is important that not only such cases as the one I described but all of them are reported. First, the outcome of a case may provide some sense of relief and closure to those who have been exploited and victimised by the criminals. Secondly, the sentences handed down may be a deterrent to other potential scammers. Thirdly, the cases act as a warning to those who may be taken in by scammers such as Coutts, and they serve as a reminder that an offer which sounds too good to be true is almost certainly too good to be true. That is why I welcome the order introduced by the noble and learned Lord. However, I would like confirmation of three points from him.

First, will all such sentencing remarks in Crown Courts be recorded and broadcast in this way? Obviously, there will be an exception for those where the judge feels that it would not be in the public interest to report it. However, I am concerned that part-time recorders may not have their sentencing remarks broadcast in this way. If that is the case, can the noble and learned Lord tell us why, and when will it be extended to all criminal sentencing in Crown Courts? I hope that the presumption will be that this will soon apply to virtually all cases. Secondly, will the remarks be broadcast on the internet in a timely fashion on the day that they are made? Timeliness is important if the sentencing remarks are to be picked up by the news media. Finally, will judges be encouraged to provide enough of a summary of the case and the impact on the victims for the public who are listening to have a clear understanding of the offence committed, its seriousness and the reasons for the sentence passed? I look forward to the noble and learned Lord’s reply.