Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am regularly nervous when legislation on criminal justice emerges from the Home Office via politicians. Much of it over the last 20 years that I have participated in through debate and discussion, and have voted on, has struggled to pass the test: does it do what it is meant to do? I will not repeat the very eloquent argument put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, but the question of whether something that goes in the right direction and is done in the right spirit does what it is meant to do is fundamental; otherwise, in several years’ time we will find that a piece of legislation is not fit for purpose, and has no purpose other than to placate a general and valid viewpoint and a demand from individuals and society.

I hope that the Minister can persuade me, and other noble Lords, that this Bill will do what it says on the tin. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, raised the question of Ian Brady. However, Brady was in Broadmoor: would this legislation have applied to him? That case scarred the whole of the north of England. In some ways, it still does to this day, particularly regarding Keith Bennett, so horrifically unfound and his mother unable to be reunited with her son before her death. The case captured the anger of whole segments of society that the law was not doing what it should. Will those determined by the law to be unfit for prison and put in special hospitals —I live just a few miles from another one, Rampton, which has had equally notorious cases—be covered?

The question of whether the law goes far enough in the right direction is also very important. I have had the honour—but not the pleasure—of being involved in detail with the independent child abuse inquiry. I have been a witness and will be again in the near future. I spent four weeks representing people in the Nottinghamshire strand of the inquiry. I sat, both inside and outside sessions, with those who had survived the most horrific abuse, often as small children. I tried to work through what it was that they actually wanted. Of course they wanted a conviction, if they could get one, but what else were they after? What was the key thing, above all else? I was able to dissect the cases of the 30 individuals I was representing. We had some successes: one case got reopened and someone got 19 years in prison; we had a celebratory party to see him off. Criminal justice and the sanction of prison was important, but at the heart of what those victims of child abuse wanted was the truth. The conclusion I drew was that the fundamental motive and critical thing to look for is power relations. Is the law sufficiently well framed in these cases? I would accept an argument from the Minister that currently it is not.

How do we deal with the misuse of power relations? In the Brady case, and in others that have been cited, it seems clear that the misuse and retention of power, by refusing to give information that victims require, is part of the criminality involved. When it comes to the images of child abuse that have led to a rather modest inclusion in the Bill, again, the fundamental question that has to be asked every time is: what is the power relation—the misuse of power? It seems to me that this opens up a healthy area for consideration, whether through amendments to this Bill or other legislation. Be it the murderer, the rapist or the child abuser, of whatever kind, misuse of power is the fundamental question, which the current law does not adequately address. It addresses acts, which can be properly adjudicated on, but the concept of power and how it is misused is much more difficult—as is, therefore, the question of silence and the refusal to give information. I hope that the Minister will give some consideration as to whether this Bill can be extended.

Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Lord Mann Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)]

My Lords, having not been able to take part in Second Reading, I welcome the chance to take part in today’s debate. I appreciate that we are now in Committee and therefore I will keep my comments brief.

I hope that the Bill will not disappoint, for I think it achieves something of immeasurable value. To all who have lost a loved one and who wait, day by day, if not hour by hour, to be reunited with them, it says that their son, daughter, mother or brother has not been, and will not be, forgotten. It gives victims dignity and it reassures their families that they are not alone in their quest to lay their loved one to rest. This might seem small comfort, but, in the circumstances, it is an important message to relay.

The families’ needs are paramount, and I fear that, despite the best of intentions, Amendment 1 could end up causing further distress. Irrespective of the fact that a “no body, no parole” rule does not allow for potential miscarriages of justice, should it be open to legal challenge, families may find that their suffering is in fact made worse over time. Given that they have already suffered in ways we cannot possibly imagine, I know that this is something we would all wish to avoid.

More generally, I hope noble Lords will not mind if I take this opportunity to welcome the inclusion in the Bill of the statutory obligation for the Parole Board to consider the non-disclosure of information about the identity of children featured in the taking and/or making of indecent images. I declare my interests as set out in the register as someone who works with the victims of child sexual abuse as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I work on the Truth Project, which runs parallel to the inquiry and was set up so that victims could come forward and tell their stories—so that after years, very often decades, of not being listened to, they could finally be heard. While their experiences are, of course, different, the effects of abuse are all too often the same: lack of self-worth, guilt that this was somehow their fault, lives gone unfulfilled and people’s futures fundamentally changed through no fault of their own.

I would argue that, as a society, we are still coming to terms with the reality of child sexual abuse, so I welcome that the Bill acknowledges the very real harm that these indecent images can do. That is a big step forward and another way in which the Bill offers crucial support for victims and their families. I thank noble Lords for allowing me to make these extra comments. I hope that we will pass the Bill unamended.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, we heard at Second Reading the case of Helen McCourt. I have looked at how many more cases there have been in England since then of murder convictions where there is no body. There have been quite a number, with victims including Sarah Wellgreen, Jenny Nicholl and Danielle Jones. The interesting but predictable correlation is that the victims are all children and women. The last male victim was Mark Tildesley, aged seven—like Keith Bennett, a child murdered by an older man. I refer noble Lords back to terms that I used at Second Reading: power games and the misuse of power. It is no coincidence that it is young children—young boys and girls—and women who are the victims of crimes where there is no body and yet a murder has taken place.

This is more than a moral crusade, more than an ethical issue. It is more than trying to shape public demand—although I am sure that public demand is huge on this. I recall the heckling outside the Old Bailey many years ago, when a man was about to be convicted of murder and the call went out, “Hand him over to the women of Bermondsey.” Then, and now, we could get a significant majority in the country to acclaim that as a concept. That is not the way we do justice—but if we do justice using legislation through the parliamentary system, where there are weaknesses we need to address them. The fact that young children and women are the victims demonstrates the power game continuing behind bars. It is a misuse of power—the understanding that the murderer retains power over the family and friends grieving the lost one. The murder is motivated in these cases by that power. Therefore, the law needs to address how we deal with that. It is a double anguish, a double punishment that the families receive. It would not be a double punishment if this amendment were passed.

Therefore, to echo what others have said about the case that above all others dominated my early years, the Moors murderers, and Winnie Johnson’s public anguish, which we saw over many decades in our media, while there are many more anguished families who are less vocal and choose other ways to grieve, I do not think that we have the system right. I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.