Housing Benefit

Debate between Michael Ellis and Glenda Jackson

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson]

From a sedentary position, the Minister is waving his hands in disbelief. This afternoon he was leaping to the Dispatch Box asking questions about what my party would have done if we had been in government. He knows, and I know, that if my party had been in government and his party had still been in opposition, and we had introduced the policies that he is supporting now, he would have fought them tooth and nail.

The Minister has absolutely no cover any more. As I have had occasion to say before in the House, his party has become the “30 pieces of silver” party, and nowhere is that more marked than in what it is proposing to do to some of the most vulnerable people in all our constituencies. I say to Government Members that the problem is not exclusively London’s; this will affect the whole country. When the second tranche of the Government’s approach to social housing comes in—the increase of rents to at least 80% and the removal of secure tenancies—the impact will run and run.

[Michael Ellis]

Are not hard-working people on low incomes also vulnerable, and do they not also need to be treated fairly by our society, as opposed to those on whom so many of the hon. Lady’s Opposition colleagues focus—people on housing benefit who are receiving more from the taxpayer than many of the working poor could dream of paying for themselves?

Defendant Anonymity

Debate between Michael Ellis and Glenda Jackson

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Several Members have asked the rhetorical question, “Why treat rape differently?” The reality is—I say this having had 16 years of experience at the criminal Bar in England and Wales—that it would not be treated differently by the law in several respects. The identity of defendants is withheld every day in hundreds of cases in our criminal justice system in cases in youth courts, or those with persons under the age of 16 who are involved in proceedings. That has been so since the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, so there are plenty of such examples every day. I accept that that relates to young people, but the principle exists.

That principle was reinforced by the previous Labour Government and applied to adults in relation to certain terrorist offences. Thanks to Labour legislation, the anonymity of defendants was applied in those cases, which is why one reads in the media about the cases of N or A. When Labour Members refer to the uniqueness of this proposition, I submit that they are wrong for those reasons.

Rape is also different from other offences. Often it is one person’s word against that of another, particularly as regards allegations when consent is an issue. Of course, in cases when consent is not an issue, the same principle does not apply. A situation in which the evidence is the word of one person against that of another—I do not exclude males here, because males can be victims of rape, as we have discussed—can never be the case in allegations of sexual offences against children. Consent will never be the issue there. When consent is an issue among adults in a rape case, there is often no supporting evidence for a jury to get a grip of that can corroborate a complainant’s account. That makes rape different from many other offences that are prosecuted in our courts and it might partly account for the exceptionally low conviction rate for rape—assuming that one accepts there is an unusually low conviction rate, because that is not universally accepted within the profession.

In every case, jurors have to be sure of a defendant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt before they convict. When it is one person’s word against another’s, my experience, and no doubt that of others who have practised in the criminal courts, is that juries may be unconvinced that they can be sure enough to convict someone of such a serious offence. In almost every other case nowadays, before a court prosecution is launched, the Crown Prosecution Service will require corroborative inculpatory evidence against the defendant, such as forensic, CCTV or eye-witness evidence. The prosecution would be very unlikely to proceed in cases of murder, grievous bodily harm or similar offences without some evidence other than one person saying, “This is what happened.”

No doubt, hon. Members will know that in every case the CPS has to satisfy itself regarding two criteria—first, that there is a realistic prospect of conviction and secondly, that it is in the public interest to proceed. To satisfy the first test, supporting evidence would invariably be needed. It has been my experience, and that of others from the Bar who have spoken in the debate, that that test seems not to have been applied by prosecutors in rape cases. It seems that prosecutors are much more robust about telling the police that they are disinclined to prosecute grievous bodily harm or actual bodily harm cases to court because there is not enough evidence, whereas that decision seems to be left more to jurors in rape cases. I urge that prosecutors should think carefully about applying a proper test to rape, because nothing in law separates rape cases from the requirement that there should be a realistic prospect of conviction. Rape has those unique characteristics, so it stands apart from most other offences in the criminal lexicon.

A second reason that I offer for the low conviction rate is the fact that the law makes no differentiation between a stranger rape, as they are sometimes called, and another type of rape in which the accused is known to the victim. I am not calling for the law to make that differentiation, but jurors invariably do make a distinction. Many members of the Bar have found that jurors are reluctant to convict of rape when there have been historical sexual relations of a consensual sort many times, because they know that the sentence will be particularly severe.

Labour Members often ask what makes rape different, but their Government made it different legally. One more example of that is that the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 recognised sexual offences as different, and section 41 placed restrictions on the cross-examination of rape complainants, creating a presumption against asking questions about previous sexual history. I do not argue that that is inappropriate, but it does restrict barristers from asking questions in court in a way that simply does not apply to other types of offence.

[Glenda Jackson]

Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the previous Government changed the law in that way? Surely it was because of the kind of severe cross-examination of rape victims that had taken place previously in which victims were reduced to tears in the witness box, which had clear implications. One point that we have been arguing all afternoon is that that reduced the likelihood of a woman who had experienced rape from coming forward and making such allegations.

[Michael Ellis]

Nothing I say is designed to make it more difficult for women to make a complaint of rape. I accept and understand from my professional knowledge that it is an extremely difficult thing for women and men to do. However, my example showed how that offence is treated differently by the law. When Opposition Members ask why I say that such cases are different from all others, I fear that their argument is weakened by the provisions in their 1999 Act.

We are not talking about false allegations of rape as such, but it is right to bear it in mind that we have a system that we must cherish: a person is innocent until proven guilty. I accept that there must be no barrier to people making a complaint, because it is already extremely difficult for them to do so; but Her Majesty’s Government are not trying to do that in this proposal. Rape is uniquely stigmatising, so much so that if one goes to prison, as I have done—obviously to see clients—one can see what happens there. Prisoners charged with rape—never mind convicted—are treated differently from other prisoners. The sad reality is that a person charged or convicted of murder or a serious offence of violence can actually be respected in the prisoner context, but those accused of rape have to be segregated. There is a unique stigma.

Rape is uniquely stigmatising and it is already treated differently by the law. I give an example, from my legal knowledge. A 17-year-old military recruit and a younger girl, aged 16, made contact via the internet. He travelled to meet her and they had sexual relations. He drove her home, by which time her father was out looking for her; indeed, she saw him in the car. At her doorstep, the mother asked, “What has he made you do?” The girl had some psychological problems and it was clear from computer conversations with friends that she was very frightened, but it was also apparent that the case was prosecuted wholly partially, with officers repeatedly reassuring her at interview that she had done the right thing. Of course, they wanted to do the right thing for her, but one has to ask whether it was doing the right thing by a complainant to reassure her repeatedly and not put her, or him, to the test on the quality of their evidence. It will be explored in court proceedings, which puts the complainant under even more pressure.

In the case I am describing, the young man was remanded, released on bail and remanded again. The case came before a Crown Court judge and when counsel—not me—asked the first question, “He didn’t rape you, did he?”, the answer was “No”, and the case was dismissed. I regret to inform Members that such cases happen on a regular basis.