Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Friday 4th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that, and I completely agree. That is the difficulty. In the newspapers we see the headlines and the story but never what is behind them or, most importantly, what happens in the wake of them.

I was describing how, by googling on the internet or doing any research through newspapers—although googling is the quickest and smoothest way—I came across several cases of football players who had been arrested on allegations of rape. One case is relevant to my hon. Friend, because it involved a Leicester football player. I did not recognise his name, but that matters not at all. He received extensive media coverage when he was arrested on an allegation of rape, and again, within a matter of weeks, when he went back to the police station on bail he was told that he would not be charged and that was the end of the matter. The newspapers and local television station covered the arrest extensively, but the fact that no charges were brought barely received a mention. I have not found any case, anywhere, in which somebody’s not being charged has received exactly the same amount of publicity as their arrest.

There are cases of councillors—some might be known to Members—who have been arrested on all manner of allegations, be they fraud, corruption or sexual assault. Again, I have looked at the newspapers and on the internet, and their arrest often makes the front page of the local newspaper. The fact that they are never charged, however, does not get on the front page; if they are lucky, it might be on page 2 or 3 and amount to half a column, but it is never the same as the initial coverage they receive when they are arrested. That is not right or fair.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

There was the case of a taxi driver who attacked female passengers, and when he was arrested other victims came forward. The publicity surrounding the case assisted other victims in doing that. What does my hon. Friend say to people who cite such instances?

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because he makes another important point. That is why the Bill, to cover exactly that situation, enables the prosecution to apply to a Crown court judge for leave to allow the media to publish the name and address of somebody if they believe it is in the interests of justice, which means a belief or a suspicion reasonably held that other people might come forward either to make a complaint or to assist the police in some way in their investigations.

The same exemption exists for the arrested person, because there are instances whereby somebody who is arrested might want their name published, especially in the local paper. For example, somebody might be arrested following an allegation by their employer that they have been stealing from work, and their defence might be not just, “I haven’t done it,” but, “I know my employer has made the same allegation against other workers and they haven’t done it. Somebody’s got their fingers in the till. It’s not me, but they’ve now pointed the finger at me because it suits them and is convenient, so I want my name in the newspaper and I am quite happy for my address and the fact that I work at such and such a place to be published, because I believe that x workers there or other people may come forward with information that will assist my preparation of my defence.” I have allowed for all that, because I do not like blanket bans on anything, and it is always important to recognise that there are exceptions to every rule.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) mentions police investigations, and we forget that in many instances the police are appalled by the sort of coverage that we all saw in relation to the first man’s arrest in Bristol. It is an injustice to the police to say that, in those instances where names and addresses have been leaked to the press, it is always their fault, because it is not. No doubt there are instances when the police give the name and address to a member of the media, and some cash might change hands. I do not have evidence of it, however; I am working only on what others tell me.

In a high-profile case such as the Bristol murder, however, with all the media attention it is almost inevitable that, if somebody is arrested, a neighbour, especially somebody in the proximity of either the deceased or the place where the crime occurred, will see or know that Bloggins has been arrested. The neighbour or somebody else will often just happen to know the person, as people do in any community, not just small ones, and they will give the name to the press. The police do not always do so, and it would be wrong to place all the blame on them.

I do not want to get into a blame game, but if anybody is to blame then responsibility lies with the media and, ultimately, all of us—everybody who buys newspapers, watches television and listens to the radio. If only we could gather together and say, “Enough is enough. I am not going to buy this newspaper, watch that television news programme, listen to that radio station or subscribe to that television channel,” we might make the progress that we all want and, as I have said, cure the mischief that we all oppose.

I very much want to deal with the Contempt of Court Act 1981, to which we have alluded. I shall tread carefully, because we do not want a debate about jurisdiction or to pick over the Act in detail, but, having read it, I and others take the view that in its current form it is not the device to cure the mischief that we all agree must be sorted out. Although the strict liability rule that it imposes—indeed, the whole nature of the Act—deals with people who have been arrested, the rule is clearly designed to deal with cases that, in effect, are in the court process. But if one is arrested, one might never go to court. That is the whole point: unless one is charged, one will not go to court. I hope I am explaining my point fully and in non-legal terms, because the Act does not cover the misdemeanours and wrongs that we all want righted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

I readily concede that my hon. Friend makes an important point about the practical implementation of the legislation. The Bill goes as far as it can to deal with the mischief. His point is sadly common in issues relating to the misuse of media. There are issues with cybercrime and with the use of internet sites that are based in far-flung places abroad, over which we have no control. This week, I heard about a nasty little website that deals with gossip among schoolchildren, which is based in Belize. It has caused a lot of misery for our schoolchildren, yet it seems that there is little we can do about it. My hon. Friend therefore makes a fair point about the natural limits of jurisdiction.

[Mr Spencer]

What sort of weight does my hon. Friend think the general public attach to such information? Would they consider a report on the BBC or in a newspaper as factual but a report on a social networking site as perhaps not based in fact?

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right to put a high degree of faith in the judgment and good sense of ordinary people in making the distinction between what they would see as authoritative sources of information and the sort of tittle-tattle that fills far too many social networking sites. A judge giving a direction to a jury can deal with such mischief and, if I may say so, my hon. Friend sounded a little judicial in his intervention, because I can imagine a judge saying to a jury at the beginning of a trial, “Please disregard any gossip you may see on websites. Don’t tweet. Don’t look at Facebook. Disregard all those websites.” There is a great difference between information and knowledge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

I do not intend to speak for too long, but I feel the need to be here to support my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), not only because her constituency is adjacent to mine, but because her Bill has great merit. She will be aware of how busy I am in my constituency office, given the debate over the forestry proposals and the fact that my constituency is Sherwood. None the less, I feel the need to be here to support her Bill. This matter truly requires more debate. Although I am committed to supporting the Bill in the hope that it can make further progress, today’s debate has shown that there clearly is a balance to be struck. I will try to address that balance during the next few minutes.

The case in Bristol, which my hon. Friend mentioned, was a good example of how the furore around such cases can develop its own momentum and take on a life of its own. Of course, this was not a good thing in that case, but we have heard of cases in which the opposite was true. I recognise that the Bill aims to limit the ability of the media to go off on their own mission, but I also like the fact that other clauses would assist people in getting names out in the media, if that would be of benefit. That is really important. There have been a number of cases in which an accused individual received publicity that allowed other members of the public to come forward and say, “Actually, I have been affected by this individual as well.” That enabled the police to build a case against that person.

Fundamentally, this debate comes down to a balance between what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest. That is very difficult to legislate for. When I was a teenager in Nottingham in the 1980s, there was a real issue with the red light district in the city. Nottinghamshire police ran a great campaign to arrest people who were kerb crawling. The Nottingham Evening Post would then print the names of the individuals who had been arrested, and I could never resist buying it just to see whose names were in it that week.

[Philip Davies]

Was my hon. Friend looking to see whether his name had been published?

[Mr Spencer]

Unfortunately, as a 15-year-old boy, I could not get there on my scooter. Clearly publishing those names was interesting to the public, but was it in the public interest? The honest answer is: probably not. Did it add anything to the criminal justice system? Probably not.

[Anna Soubry]

I, too, recall that; indeed, I reported on a number of those cases. I can still remember some of the names of those people. One was quite a senior police officer in Lincolnshire, and there was another who was connected with the law. However, if my memory is right, was it not the case that those people had not just been arrested, but almost immediately charged? I am reasonably confident in saying that their names were published only because they were charged immediately after they had been arrested. That is why the press reported those names. If those people had merely been arrested with a bail back, I doubt whether the press would have reported their names.

[Mr Spencer]

I concede that my hon. Friend’s knowledge about this issue is superior to mine. I merely make the point about what is interesting to the public and what is in the public interest.

My hon. Friend has referred to celebrities and TV personalities. The recent case that comes to mind is that of the Sky football commentators. Although they were not charged with any crime, there was large furore around those individuals. As I understand it, she is proposing a complete separation of such cases from those that end with a criminal prosecution. That is an important distinction to make. It is also one that leads me to support the Bill and to allow it to progress through the House so that we can debate its merits further. Many other points have been made, and I do not want to prolong this debate any further than is necessary, so I shall commend the Bill to the House and will support it during its progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. The difficulty that I have with the Bill is that I am not sure how enforceable it would be. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should not attempt to deal with the problem merely because it is difficult. However, because of the nature of the internet, it might not be possible for us sensibly to enforce the law in any meaningful way. The fact that the media in all their forms—particularly, in this context, the electronic media—publish the identity of an accused person has led to the Bill being brought to the House today. That is also what gives rise to one of the Bill’s potential flaws.

[Mr Spencer]

May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the weight that the public attach to a news report? If that report is on Sky News or the BBC, or in a newspaper, the general public will attach great merit to it and expect it to have been researched. However, if it has been posted on a social networking site by, say, my brother’s uncle’s mate’s niece, it will simply be viewed as gossip and will have no impact on someone’s ability to get a job in the future.