Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Freer and Robert Buckland

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

I can reassure the hon. Lady: I understand that prisoners are indeed screened in their first week, as are those on probation. However, there is more work to be done, and I am more than happy to arrange meetings with the hon. Lady and with any other colleague who wishes to pursue in more depth the work that we are doing in respect of both prisons and probation.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

May I commend the work that the Government are doing in pursuance of the call for evidence on neurodiversity that I initiated when I was in office? I note that 80 neurodiversity support managers have been appointed, but what more can be done to ensure that all our prisons have neurodiversity officers who can train other staff as well as screening prisoners who come into the system for a range of neurodiverse conditions?

Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill

Debate between Mike Freer and Robert Buckland

Friday 4th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Mike Freer]

I am not a lawyer, so I do not profess to know the technicalities of the difference between information, gossip and libel, but can my hon. Friend confirm that the written media carry much more weight than the internet?

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) mentioned libel, but often, the points that are reported are facts. The gentleman in Bristol was gay, he was eccentric and he was a teacher, but it is the insinuation that is wrapped around such facts that causes the damage. That gentleman was referred to as a teacher at a school, within a mile of which a murder had taken place several years previously. All that is factual, but the insinuation that the media wrap around such facts causes the damage that needs to be controlled.

[Mr Buckland]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the assertion of facts that could be prejudicial to any future investigation, although I would say that I am now of the view that internet and print media are indistinguishable. The only difference between them is that today’s print is tomorrow’s firelighters—tomorrow’s chip paper, as I think I called it in another debate. The problem with the internet is that it is not just for Christmas, it is for life. I could give a number of examples of constituents who, years after having been exonerated and cleared of very serious allegations, still have to live with the fact that when a Google search is made against their name, a newspaper report about that false allegation comes up. It haunts people who are in that unfortunate situation. As I said earlier, that is a matter for DCMS input and for regulation, because we need consensus about how to deal with the sometimes baleful effects of internet reports that linger for years and years.

I return to what I regard as the grey area between arrest and charge, and the somewhat cumbersome nature of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, the leave of the Attorney-General is needed before any prosecution is brought, which can often be a cumbersome way of doing things. Such things take time, because obtaining that leave can interrupt proceedings and lead to a delay before a decision is made, which can be damaging in itself. As she said, the test set out in that Act—whether there is

“substantial risk that the course of justice…will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”—

is a high one. It mentions the course of justice, however, and at the point of arrest we do not know whether there will be a course of justice in the sense of a charge. I can see many a clever lawyer—much cleverer ones than me, although I have received a degree of praise today that I perhaps do not deserve—taking that point firmly by the reins and running with it.

In short, the Act, which is celebrating its 30th year, needs revision, and here is my suggestion. We should consider the point between arrest and charge in a different way from the point from charge to trial or conviction. There should be a presumption against the publication of details of an arrested person prior to charge; then that presumption should be reversed post-charge. In other words, we should apply the interests of justice test, but with safeguards in place, acknowledging that the decision to charge is significant. It means that the prosecution has formed the view that there is a reasonable prospect of conviction, and that it is in the public interest to charge. That is an important and simple test that everybody can understand, both in this place and elsewhere, and it should trigger more disclosure.

Prior to that point, unless there are public interest reasons such as those clearly set out in the Bill, the presumption should be the other way around and there should not be publication unless there is a clear public interest such as that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) rightly referred to. I can imagine, and in fact I know of, scenarios in which there is a tight-knit local community or an estate in which a particular issue arises, and it would be in the local public interest to know that suspect A had been arrested. That person may well be known to local people, and it would give them a sense of confidence that the criminal justice system was working. Most importantly, if there were any perceived injustice at that stage, people in the local community could come forward and say, “We think you’ve got the wrong person—will you investigate why?” I can imagine a whole host of community and wider public interest reasons why publication could and should take place.

The observation that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) made earlier about limiting the details that can be published to someone’s name and address has merit. In the spirit of the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe that the Bill is not necessarily the precise device needed to cure the mischief, it could well be that if the Bill proceeds further, or in the course of a wider review of the Contempt of Court Act, we should consider carefully whether setting out clearly in statute a provision for the publication of name and address could cure the problem of the grey area that I have been talking about.

I have mentioned the exceptions that my hon. Friend has set out in clause 2. I welcome them, with one caveat. Subsection (2)(c) and (d) state that it will be in the interests of justice to make a direction when

“it may lead to information that assists the arrested person”

or if

“the conduct of the…defence at trial is likely to be substantially prejudiced if the direction is not given.”

I wonder whether we need the word “substantially”. Perhaps it would be far better to take it out and make the point that if the defendant wants the provision to apply, that is a matter for them. The burden of proof is not on the defendant, as we all know, so perhaps that word should be taken out.