Defendant Anonymity

Debate between Meg Munn and Anna Soubry

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

May I begin by thanking the Minister, as I know he has listened to many of us who do not support all of the Government’s proposals in this matter? I know that he has made movement, too, and I am very grateful for that, and I am also sure that he will continue to listen to all that is said on this topic. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) has had to leave the Chamber, because I also want to say, with great respect to her, that I think she is living in the past.

I pay tribute to the last Government for the great strides they took in ensuring that justice was done for all those who make a complaint of either rape or sexual assault. I work as a criminal barrister—I say I work as one, because I like to think I can still do the occasional case—and I have been in practice for some 16 years. I very rarely prosecute as I have a defence practice, and I have defended many men who have been accused of rape or sexual assault. On one occasion, I defended a woman who was accused of rape. With great respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), this is not a gender argument—that has been identified by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). We know the statistics and they are poor—we wish they were a lot better. However, as I have said in an intervention, we know that 60% of the people who make a complaint of rape are females over the age of 16, and that 40% are children—that includes males.

I echo what the hon. Lady said about young men making complaints about rape. I was involved in a case where I defended a man who was accused of the persistent and long-term buggery of a young man whom he had adopted. That young man did not make his complaint until he had run away from home—understandably. At the age of 18 he came forward to complain about this dreadful abuse, and my client was convicted. There is no way that that young man would have come forward to make his complaint if he had thought for one moment that his name would ever appear in the newspapers.

It is important that we all understand that there is no such thing as anonymity in a criminal justice system, save with one very rare exception; there are certain cases where the prosecution, with great care and after a lot of thought, applies to a learned judge that a witness in a particular case should have complete, true anonymity, so that their name is not known to the defendant or, indeed, to anybody else in the court. It is a bit of a myth that there is a long queue of women who somehow enjoy complete anonymity and can make up false allegations, knowing that their name will never be known. As all of us who have practised in the criminal justice system know, on an indictment the name of the complainant is there. It is a sad moment in court when one sits there, an indictment is put to a defendant and the name of the child is read out—the name is given as “a child under the age of 13” or “a child under the age of seven”. So there is no such thing as the anonymity of complainants.

There is also no such thing—I would hope—as the anonymity of defendants. As has been said, we are talking about a prohibition on the publication of a name. I know that I am of some age, but when I worked as a journalist many years ago the name of somebody who had been arrested was never publicised. What has happened, in reality, is that too many police officers have decided that it would be in their interests—I say no more than that—to release the name of somebody who has been arrested, especially somebody in the public eye.

I want to nail a bit of a myth that suggests that it is only the accusation of rape which casts such a terrible slur on someone’s reputation. I am not diminishing, for one moment, the appalling trauma involved, especially for young men—I am talking about those whom I have defended, who were often not the brightest or the most resourced—of often waiting for more than a year before the Crown rightly and properly decides not to proceed. We should never underestimate the trauma for those young men and their families when they are facing that charge. I believe that the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said that the sentencing guidelines say that if someone has been convicted of rape and they express some remorse, they would not get a custodial sentence, but with respect, that is not right. My understanding of the sentencing guidelines is that the starting point, even on a guilty plea, is a sentence of some four to five years. It is that very knowledge that adds to the great trauma of young men, notably, who face an allegation of rape, but many other people who face other allegations are also traumatised by that and by the criminal process.

For example, I am told that two city councillors in Nottingham were arrested on charges of fraud or some other misdemeanour. The fact that they were never charged never appeared on the front page of the Nottingham Evening Post—I think it was slipped away on page 6 or in some such place. That allegation was hugely damaging to their reputation. I can think of all other sorts of examples—dentists or doctors might be accused of something and arrested, their names could be published and again their reputations would be sullied.

As so many others have said, I urge the Minister to consider with great care why he is singling out rape. I know the point is not lost on him that the accusation could be made that, for some reason, we on this side of the House do not believe in the proper prosecution of people who rape women, who rape young men and who rape children, whereas we all know that we take it seriously. I am grateful to have heard all the proposals that have been put forward by the Minister about the need to support people when they make allegations of rape.

Rape, like all criminal offences, falls into many different categories. I have touched on the fact that a significant number of the people who complain about rape are children. We also know that a significant number of the 60% of complainants who are females over 16 must be making complaints about what happened to them when they were children—that is, historic allegations of abuse. It is unfortunate that we do not have those figures; we should.

We know that there is a big difference between somebody walking along a street or a road who is attacked by a complete stranger and the other category of rape complaint, which relates to two people who are known to each other. Again, it is not as simple as it is often portrayed. They might be known to each other because they work together, so there is some sort of relationship, or because they have met in a public house and exchanged words. They might be known to each other because they have been married to each other for a considerable length of time or because they have been in some sort of relationship. They might be known to each other because they have gone out for the first time on a date and because something has occurred that has caused that woman to make a complaint of rape. It is a fiendishly complicated issue and we cannot take a broad-brush approach and say that all allegations of rape fall into the same category. They profoundly do not.

In the little time I have left, I want to touch on one issue that concerns me. Again, I know from what I am told that there is a real problem with a lack of good sound evidence. I am afraid that the Minister will have to rely on a lot of anecdotal evidence, but I have no doubt from my practice and from talking to other members of the Bar and to members of the judiciary that when a name is put into the public domain, other complainants come forward. There are many instances of it. I know from my practice that when the name of a priest who was arrested went into the local newspaper, other women came forward who had been to him and to whom he had been their minister. When they knew that others had made a complaint, they came forward. That tendency should not be underestimated.

As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have had the good fortune to be drawn in the ballot for private Members’ Bills. I know that in addressing this Chamber I must not touch too much on what I hope to say when we discuss the Bill, but I ask the Minister to consider allowing anybody who is arrested to enjoy the privilege, almost, of not having his or her name published in the press. I believe that we can do that effectively and efficiently while still allowing the prosecution to apply to a judge, depending on the particular circumstances of an offence, for the name to be published. We must allow our judges to exercise their discretion, which they usually do, when they are allowed to do their jobs, particularly well.

The last Government did a great deal to redress what was clearly the wrong balance, with women not being believed, best evidence not being gathered and so on. However, I am bound to say that I think that in some respects the balance has been tipped too far. Those of us who practise at the criminal Bar are concerned about the number of prosecutions that continue when we know that, if the allegation was not of rape or sexual assault, they would not proceed. We have to make sure that when the police investigate an allegation, they do not involve themselves. With great respect to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, it is not a question of the police officer who investigates the allegation believing the complainant. That is not their role or job.

[Meg Munn]

This is a very important point. I was saying not that the police officer had to believe the complainant, but that their initial approach when someone comes to the police station should be to adopt an attitude from the outset that that person has something relevant to say that is likely to be true. That does not mean that they should put aside all the issues of evidence.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. The correct word, which I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) for supplying, is “empathy”. I have no trouble at all with police officers who are not involved with the investigation, and all the support services, giving support to the complainant, but it is absolutely imperative that the police officer or officers involved in the case should be of the right rank. I have seen too many cases involving someone who has probably just become a police constable—other learned hon. Members are saying, “Hear, hear!”, because we barristers have had almost daily experience of this. It is also imperative that the police should apply the same standards to complainants in rape and sexual assault cases as in any other case. Some of us have been greatly disturbed by changes in policy codes that seem to suggest that there should be a different standard and test when deciding whether to prosecute in rape and sexual assault cases, because there should not be. If we do all that, there is a good chance that the rape conviction rate, although it is very good—we should get those figures sorted out; perhaps other hon. Members will enlighten us—will rise. I urge the Minister to continue consulting, and perhaps my private Member’s Bill could, with the backing of both sides of the House, be the perfect solution.