Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Bambos Charalambous

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Bambos Charalambous]

Parliamentarians have a long history of protesting with many different organisations, so I encourage those who feel strongly willed to join protests, if they are appropriate. Clearly, such protests need to be within the scope of the law. If they are breaking the law, the protests need to be dealt with. That is why we have the law, and that is why the law is in place. People need to be respectful of the law in all circumstances.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend was as struck as I was when we had the witnesses in front of us and the police said that, actually, they feel that they have enough powers. They might not be used evenly across the country, which is obviously something on which we need more robust guidance. I remember that when I was very young, in ’89, I came down from the University of Sheffield to protest against the poll tax. We had big demonstrations here in London, and the police felt completely able to charge us on horses. We were kettled, and it was terrifying. Multiple arrests were made without the due process going through. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the witnesses, the police seem to have the powers. Is he as concerned as I am about where these changes are coming from, what the motivation is, and whether they are actually necessary?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. These are operational matters for the police. The police currently have the powers, and they have to be mindful of the impact of their powers on a demonstration and whether they will inflame the situation. Good policing will err on the side of caution on some occasions, but sometimes the police need to deal with a situation that they think will get out of hand. Trying to legislate for what is in the discretion of police officers is wrong, and we should actually trust the police in using their powers of discretion.

The clauses would also widen the types of conditions that the police could place on static protests. The clauses would significantly lower the legal test that must be met for the police to issue conditions on protests. The police would be able to issue conditions on protests where they are noisy enough to cause “intimidation or harassment” or

“serious unease, alarm or distress”

to bystanders. Before using their amended section 12 powers to issue conditions on a protest, the police would have to consider the “likely number of persons” affected by the protest, the “likely duration” of the impact, and the “likely intensity” of the impact. The clauses would also widen the types of conditions that police can issue on static protests to match their powers relating to protest marches. The police would also be able to issue any condition on static protests that they think is necessary

“to prevent…disorder, damage, disruption, impact or intimidation”.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. These are human rights that have been fundamentally fought for and won. We need to do everything we can to secure them, and they should not be watered down as easily as is being proposed in the Bill.

These powers would also amend the offence of failing to comply with a condition imposed by the police on a protest. It would remove the legal test that requires protesters knowingly to breach a condition to commit an offence. People would commit the amended offence if they disobeyed a condition that they ought to have known was in force. Finally, these powers would allow the police to issue conditions on one-person protests. Currently, protests must involve at least two people in order to engage police powers.

The question we raised about how to ensure that protests are peaceful and how to balance the rights of others to go about their daily business is an important one as the covid crisis eases. We know that the emergency legislation introduced by this place shifted the balance of power away from citizens and towards the state. Organisations such as Liberty, Members across the House, lawyers and others have been concerned throughout that those powers are too great. We gladly handed over those powers, which was the right thing to do, but it is crucial, as we move out of the covid crisis, that we restore those rights with equal enthusiasm.

We need to remember that covid and public health formed the context within which many of the arguments over protests during the past year have occurred. Things have not been as they normally are. Decisions about allowing protests have had an extra layer of complexity, because of the need to protect public health. Decisions have been hampered by the inevitable problems of interpreting exactly what new laws mean, or should mean, in terms of protest. The fact that covid laws did not ban protests has meant that each decision has in part been subjective, putting the police in the firing line for every decision made.

I have heard many times from the police over the past year that they have struggled to be the ones interpreting the law, without the leadership from Government that they needed. The lack of the promised direction from the Home Secretary over the weekend of the Sarah Everard vigil is a stark case in point. The police were seen to be the ones making the political decisions because there was too much ambiguity in the law. That must be a firm lesson for us going forward. It is our job to define the law in a clear way, so that the police are not the ones getting the blame for our law making.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend has got to the nub of the problem, which was highlighted by a number of the witnesses, as I will come to in my speech. This is ambiguous and lacks the clarity that the police need. There is no drive from the police that they need this measure, so why is it in the Bill? What is the motivation behind it? I support my hon. Friend in saying that it should not be there.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which I will come to later. The Bill includes many ambiguous clauses that will no doubt cause lots of legal argument in the effort to define what they mean. That puts the police in an impossible situation.

A good starting point for this debate are the Peelian principles expressed by Sir Robert Peel when he set out ethical policing in the early 19th century:

“To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.”

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend again makes a very good point. The Government clearly have a desire to imprison more people, because they are embarking on a prison-building programme—I do not know whether that is part of the reason why they are introducing these powers. Good policing is using discretion, dealing with each occasion as it arises and policing in a sensitive way. Arresting people should be a last resort, albeit one that the police should use when appropriate.

To quote Matt Parr further:

“I think there are dangers and, as ever, the bar for measuring what was significant or what was serious should be a high one. We all recognise that. It should not be done on the flimsiest of pretexts. Again, it would then be open to challenge, and I think police officers would only wish to use it when they were confident.”—(Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 53, Q77.]

Matt Parr made some important points that should serve as a reminder to Ministers of the problems with clauses 54 to 60. He did not want a lower threshold; he wanted more training for police officers so that they can better understand how articles 10 and 11 might be adhered to. However, the clauses widen the legislation significantly. Does that not make the job of the police in enforcing the legislation more complex?

Lochlinn Parker, the head of civil liberties at ITN Solicitors, said:

“It is going to be down to police officers to try and determine a highly nebulous idea: what is annoying? Everybody is annoyed when a protest takes over the street, but lowering that [threshold] significantly is creating a situation where, if minded to, there will be very little protest that would be lawfully allowed.”

He continued:

“Police will be asked, as they frequently are by the government and the press, why wasn’t more done to stop this protest which caused disruption and problems”.

He also said:

“The political pressure on the police, and potentially their own inclinations in terms of keeping control and order, is going to come to the fore.”

Bob Broadhurst was gold command for the policing of the 2009 G20 protests and now lectures at the London Policing College. Apparently, he choked on his coffee when reading the explanatory notes for the Bill. He said:

“They’re saying protestors are now using new tactics—they’re locking themselves in, they’re gluing themselves down, they’re blocking roads. They were doing that 30 years ago.”

He went on to say:

“None of these tactics are new.”

Clifford Stott, a professor of social psychology at Keele University and expert in protest and police behaviour, argues that, although he vehemently disagrees with the proposals,

“under the Human Rights Act, the police will not be able to enforce any elements of the legislation which interfere with Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights—freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.”

[Sarah Champion]

Does my hon. Friend share my concerns that the people who are absolutely set on protesting are going to do it regardless of the legislation, in that getting arrested is almost part of their MO? Does he also share my concern that the Bill will have a chilling effect on people’s right to protest, full stop? Secondly, there will be people who are, in their understanding, at completely lawful protests, and will, without any intention on their part, get caught up when the bar is lowered. A whole group of people who should not be arrested will, as my hon. Friend said, be clogging up the police system.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The lowering of the bar will mean that innocent people will be caught up in something when they have gone to protest about a perfectly valid issue that they are concerned about. They may get caught up in this unwittingly and could end up being criminalised as a result .

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[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. Absolutely, we do not want to be a country that is seen to be oppressing its people. Those rights to protest are at first lost gradually, then quickly, so the transition from what is seen to be a democracy to authoritarian state happens very quickly and we need to be wary of that. We cannot go down that path.

[Sarah Champion]

I am grateful that the Foreign Secretary has been very good on protecting the right to protest internationally. It seems somewhat hypocritical that we are reducing the right to protest here while on the international stage we are advocating for it.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We cannot be seen to be criticising other Governments for the way they suppress the right to protest when we are doing the same here. That weakens our global standing and we should not go down that path.

The College of Policing has authorised professional practice, or APP, that contains 30 tactical options to deal with public disorder and protest. It is out of date. It does not include recent relevant case law or information on certain new and emerging tactical options. The college is planning a review. The inspectorate states:

“By 30 June 2022, the College of Policing, through its planned review, should bring the public order authorised professional practice (APP) up to date and make arrangements to keep it current, with more regular revisions as they become necessary. It would also be beneficial to consolidate the APP, protest operational advice and aide memoire into a single source (or a linked series of documents).”

The inspectorate notes:

“We found that forces do not do enough to share legal opinion or case law on protest policing. And officers and staff rarely use Knowledge Hub’s ‘Specialist Operational Support—Public Order Public Safety’ group… By 31 December 2021, chief constables should make sure that their legal services teams subscribe to the College of Policing Knowledge Hub’s Association of Police Lawyers group.

By 31 December 2021, the College of Policing should ensure that all Public Order Public Safety commander and adviser students attending its licensed training are enrolled in the College of Policing Knowledge Hub’s Specialist Operational Support—Public Order Public Safety group, before they leave the training event…

In making decisions about how to respond to a protest, public order commanders need to consider domestic human rights legislation. And they must also consider a patchwork of European case law. These have established precedents on issues such as how long protests can reasonably go on for, and the level of disruption that protests can reasonably cause.”

The inspectorate stated:

“Examining the gold strategies and silver plans submitted as part of our document review, we found that commanders generally showed a grasp of human rights legislation. However, we did not see evidence that they consistently considered the wider legal picture.”

The inspectorate also recommended:

“By 30 June 2022, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, working with the College of Policing, should provide additional support to gold commanders to improve the quality of gold strategies for protest policing. This support should include the creation and operation of a quality assurance process; and/or the provision of more focused continuous professional development. The additional support should ensure that gold commanders for protest operations include an appropriate level of detail within their gold strategies. This may include the levels of disruption or disorder above which enforcement action will be considered…

By 30 June 2022, the National Police Coordination Centre should revise the national post-event learning review form so that it contains a section to report on the policing operation’s impact on the community…

Forces usually have good protest-related briefing processes and commanders’ decisions generally reach the front line effectively. However, gold strategies often do not set out the limits of acceptable behaviour from the protesters. Better explanations of these limits would help officers to understand what is expected of them and empower them to take appropriate action.

Non-specialist officers receive limited training in protest policing. As a result, they often lack confidence in using police powers. Some officers are anxious about attracting complaints and being filmed in protest situations. It is important that forces provide good-quality training and briefing before deploying officers into these situations.

Forces should make better use of community impact assessments to evaluate the impact of protests on those who live in, work in or visit an area. The process should include regular reviews and updates, so the police can respond to changing circumstances. Only seven of the ten forces we inspected submitted any community impact assessments for examination, and some of those we examined were of a poor standard”.

With the covid legislation, we have seen the difficulty that rushing through new police powers can bring for the police. They have managed to do a brilliant job of enforcing the new laws, but they have faced a number of difficult decisions owing to the loose drafting of the law, and they have received criticism where they have got it wrong. The new protest powers will force the police to make political decisions about which protests they deem unlawful. That is extremely concerning and will put the police and the public in a difficult position.

Why do the Government want to make the police the gatekeepers for public protests? The Government are choosing to ignore the many peaceful protests that go ahead and are attended by police. The public order measures in the Bill risk putting the police in a trying position more often, and they risk creating more disorder and disruption. The Government should be putting the police in a position whereby the rules are not too confusing or too broad. If they do not do so, that will only create more flashpoints.

It is clear that police support for the Bill is not what the Government are saying it is. The Metropolitan police want more clarity on ways to manage very disruptive protests that go on and on, and to make sure that emergency services can get through roads. That is understandable, but the police want more clarity and certainty, which is what they said in the evidence sessions. These provisions bring the opposite. Instead of a modest reset, we have in front of us clauses that significantly widen police powers on public order.

Clauses 54 to 60 mark a substantial change in the approach to policing protest, which has the potential to be applied disproportionately and could curtail article 10 and article 11 rights that the inspectorate of constabulary is keen to protect. The police already have the powers to break up protests that cause harm, serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of a community. Many of the country’s best lawyers are telling us that the Public Order Act 1986 and the many other powers on the statute book to police protests are enough.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. It is a question of proportionality, and we need to make sure that we are allowed to get here as parliamentarians, but also that protesters are allowed to air their views. It is about striking that balance. The legislation goes too far the other way, and does not strike such a balance. It is too much against the right to protest.

The reports by the inspectorate ask for modest changes, but the Government decided to go much further. The Bill targets protesters causing “serious unease”, those being too noisy and those causing serious annoyance. Clause 54 amends section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986 so that police officers can issue conditions on protest marches that generate noise, but may have significant relevant impact on persons “in the vicinity” or that may result in “serious disruption” to the activities of an organisation in the vicinity.

[Sarah Champion]

I do not know whether it was recorded properly, but I do not think we ever got to the bottom of what “serious noise” was. During our evidence session, a drill was going in the next room. I suffer from tinnitus and it was driving me insane. I could not concentrate and I wanted it to stop, but there are examples of protests at which I would be chanting and would think that that was acceptable. Did we ever get to the bottom of what “serious noise” was?

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I do not think that we ever did, and that is part of the problem because there will be a disparity in how the Bill is implemented, which will lead to confusion because what one person regards as noise may not be what another person regards as noise. The last thing we want is confusion when protests are being policed.

Under clause 54, noise would have to have a relevant impact, resulting in intimidation, harassment, serious unease, alarm or distress to bystanders. The vague term “serious unease” is a very low threshold for police-imposed conditions.

[Sarah Champion]

Owing to the areas I campaign on, I have had protests against me and that does cause me serious unease—it is horrible. They have led to death threats and all manner of things, but I would not stop people’s right to protest because we all have our rights and I find it incredibly chilling that people’s rights are going to be stopped.

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[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It would be helpful if we had an idea of the definition of “disruptive noise”. If we are to pass the Bill, we should know what we are passing.

There have been problems when the police have not satisfactorily communicated conditions to protesters. Will the Minister provide the Committee with evidence to justify the proposed widening of criminal responsibility in clause 56? The HMICFRS report talked about a slight shift in the legal test on that, but what the Government propose goes way too far. Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said that the legislation includes “some really dodgy definitions” that the police are supposed to make sense of. The point of protest is to capture people’s and the Government’s attention. Sometimes protests are noisy and sometimes annoying, but they are as fundamental to our democracy as Parliament is and as the courts are.

On 6 October last year, I had the pleasure of witnessing an impressive and effective protest outside Parliament, which was organised by the Let Music Live campaign to highlight the plight of freelance musicians who received very little support from the Government during the coronavirus pandemic. The protest involved 400 socially-distanced musicians, all dressed in black, playing 90 seconds, or 20%, of Gustav Holst’s “Mars”. Not only was the demonstration eye-catching, but it used the sound and the loudness of Holst’s piece to convey the message.

The demonstration consisted of 90 seconds of sound building until it came to an abrupt stop. Would such a protest fall foul of clause 54? I fear it might, but who would be qualified to assess whether a 90-second blast of Holst’s “Mars” constituted noise that might have a “significant” or “relevant” impact on “persons in the vicinity”? The phraseology is so vague and devoid of precise meaning that it will be a legal nightmare for the police to determine what the terms “significant”, “relevant” and “impact” mean for the purposes of the Bill.

[Sarah Champion]

I wonder whether the bar would be set at exactly the same level if the music were not classical, but heavy metal. Are we getting into a really subjective area here?

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this will be very subjective. I used to play rugby, and this is what we would have called a hospital pass. It is going to put the police in an impossible situation, and they will have to make judgments about what constitutes “significant”, “relevant” and “impact.”

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[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and ask, well, why not? Does he not think that is a noise? If it is not a noise, why is that not set out in the legislation? Where is the guidance on it? The legislation is badly worded and wrong, and its vagueness will cause confusion. The hon. Gentleman has demonstrated the point I am making; he says it is a load of rubbish, but in my view that would be captured under the legislation. Are songs and music exempt? Perhaps the Minister will tell us.

Some protests and processions are loud, colourful and joyful. I am sure the Minister is aware of the explosion of colour and sound that is the Pride parade, which takes place in towns and cities across the country. Pride in London is a wonderful event, and the procession is a joy to watch. It is also very noisy. There are drums, whistles, sound systems and cheering crowds; it is quite something. Will the London Pride parade, which passes down the top part of Whitehall, constitute noise and have a significant and relevant impact on persons in the vicinity? Part of the point of Pride is to be noisy. Could Pride be outlawed for being noisy? If not, why not? Let me put on record my support and solidarity of the LGBT+ community during this Pride month.

Even if the Minister brushes off music, song and noise made by the Pride parade as not constituting noise for the purposes of the Bill, does she concede that noise can be an integral part of protest? Earlier this year, we watched in horror as the military staged a coup against the democratically elected Government of Myanmar. There was outrage among people as the military clamped down on protest and imposed curfews. Faced with the prospect of curfews and armed brutality against street protests, protestors found other ways to make their protest heard. In February, in the city of Yangon, ordinary citizens staged a noisy protest, by banging pots and pans and anything they could lay their hands on from their balconies and homes, to create an almighty din and show civil disobedience and anger against the coup. Those same protestors in the UK, banging their pots and pans, would fall foul of clause 54. Noise is part of protests; whoever drew up the proposals clearly has not thought through the dilemma that the police will face, putting them in an invidious position as they try to enforce these sloppily drafted clauses.

I am surprised that the Government, who pride themselves so much on their libertarian values, are so prescriptive and authoritarian in trying to pass the legislation. The right to protest is a fundamental freedom, as is freedom of speech. The former Prime Minister and Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), was right when she said on Second Reading that the legislation is concerning and risks going against the right of freedom of speech. On the power of the Home Secretary to make regulations on the meaning of serious disruption to the activities of an organisation or the life of the community, the right hon. Member made another important point, saying:

“It is tempting when Home Secretary to think that giving powers to the Home Secretary is very reasonable, because we all think we are reasonable, but future Home Secretaries may not be so reasonable.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 78.]

If there were a peaceful protest outside the Home Office that the Home Secretary did not like, everyone could be criminalised for shouting too loud, so that people working were not disturbed. Does the Minister have a cause that she cares deeply about and may want to protest about? The Home Secretary would have the ultimate say on whether what she was saying was right or wrong. I know that I would not want the Home Secretary to have that power.

Michael Barton, the former chief constable of Durham police, compared the measures in the Bill to those of a paramilitary-style police force, and asked if the Government are

“happy to be linked to the repressive regimes currently flexing their muscles via their police forces?”

I reiterate his question to the Minister, and I hope she will answer it. The very same Home Office that is offering Hong Kongers British national overseas visas to escape the oppressive regime that last week banned the annual vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 would criminalise those Hong Kongers for demonstrating loudly outside the Houses of Parliament. Once again, the Government are on the wrong side of the argument; instead, they find themselves on the same side as those who curtail the right to protest and silence the voices of the people.

[Sarah Champion]

The march in Hong Kong that my hon. Friend refers to shut down the city. We, as a country, have been very outspoken about China’s action towards those protestors, for criminalising them in such a mass brutal manner. I bring my hon. Friend back to the hypocrisy that we might see should we welcome those protestors with welcome arms while, as he says, criminalising them in this country.

[Bambos Charalambous]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Why do we criticise the regime in Hong Kong when we are going to be imposing limitations on the right to protest here? It just does not make any sense. It does not add up.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Bambos Charalambous

Committee stage
Thursday 27th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Champion]

I will start with new clause 37 on extending double jeopardy. I start with a quote from Dean Radford in the Metro in 2019,

“Like many young boys who grew up with a dream of becoming a footballer, the sport was my whole life. It was the be-all and end-all. I didn’t even want to think about not being offered a contract. That dream looked like it could become reality when I made it to Southampton Football Club at 13 years old. They had produced some of my favourite football heroes and I was given the amazing opportunity to train with boys like myself, who wanted to be the next big thing in football. All of this came to a halt when I was subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of a coach I trusted and looked up to.”

In the 1980s, Radford was one of six boys allegedly abused by their football coach and scout Bob Higgins at Southampton football club. Higgins was acquitted of all charges in the ’90s and continued in same line of work. In 2016 the football abuse scandal rightly erupted, and more than 100 people came forward in relation to Higgins. Higgins was convicted of 45 counts of indecent assault involving 23 victims over a period from 1971 to 1996.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out exceptions to the law of double jeopardy if the offences are considered “severe” or “serious”. Murder, kidnapping, serious drug offences, serious criminal damage offences, and penetrative child sex offences all come under that definition. The schedule does not exempt any offences relating to non-penetrative sexual assault or sexual activity with a child. Due to double jeopardy exemptions not applying in sexual assault or indecent assault, the original six complainants against Higgins from the 1990s were prevented from having their case reheard. I find it shocking that the law does not deem non-penetrative child abuse as serious or severe enough for retrial.

The Government is right to acknowledge that extending the list of qualifying offences is not something to be undertaken lightly, but any form of child sexual abuse, whether it involves penetration or not, should be considered a serious or severe offence. Survivors do not differentiate between the severity of different forms of sexual abuse; they do not have a hierarchy. They judge it by the impact on their lives, which tends to be both devastating and lifelong. Abuse of a child should be the very definition of a serious crime, regardless of whether penetration has taken place. I return to the quote from Dean Radford in 2019. He says:

“even though Higgins is in jail right now, he spends no time in his cell for the abuse he [allegedly] subjected us to. He sits in jail knowing he got away with it when it comes to us. He took away years of my childhood and ruined my adult life, without paying any consequences for it. There isn’t one day that I don’t feel sick to the stomach, or sleep through one night without waking up and thinking of what he did to me.”

New clause 37 would amend schedule 5 to the Criminal Justice Act to include child sex offences set out in sections 7 to 10 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and sections 14 and 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. Will the Government at the very least commit to a review of the law in this area? It has been 20 years since the Law Commission conducted such a review. The proposed changes to the double jeopardy laws have received widespread support, including from the Victims’ Commissioner, the all-party parliamentary group for adult survivors of child sexual abuse, and over 15,000 people who have signed a change.org petition.

The case of Dean Radford, who was abused by Bob Higgins, is just one that devalues the fairness that should exist in our criminal justice system. Higgins was convicted of abusing a total of 24 boys, but the police, Crown Prosecution Service and clearly the criminal jury and judge appreciated the veracity and importance of Radford’s evidence, because as he was a witness at Higgins’ trial in respect of the abuse—but he did not get the conviction in relation to Higgins’ abuse of him.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. My constituent Ian Ackley was also abused, by Barry Bennell. He was one of the first whistleblowers on the sexual abuse of young men by football coaches, but because he was one of the first, he did not get the support that others got subsequently. As a result, he was encouraged to allow certain offences not to be pursued as much as he would have liked. Does she think that, with additional support, that would change—and how does that relate to her new clause?

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend knows that I have the great privilege of knowing and working with Ian. He is a remarkable survivor, who does everything he can both to prevent and to seek justice for child abuse. The problem in a lot of these cases is that the abuse happened in the past. As technology has moved forward—in the use of DNA, for example—the evidence available now will be so comprehensively different from that available to those brave enough and successful enough to try to get a case to court in, say, the ’70s or ’80s, that not to allow double jeopardy in the case of child abuse seems a really poor and morally reprehensible decision. We have the opportunity to change that now for these specific cases.

As I said, the last review into double jeopardy was conducted 20 years ago by the Law Commission. Since then, the disclosure in 2017 of abuse by Jimmy Savile and in 2016 of abuse within football, and disclosures in other parts of society have changed the societal landscape so radically that I ask the Minister to consider at the very least initiating such a review.

I will end with a question that I put to the Victims’ Commissioner:

“Non-penetrative child abuse offences are not seen as serious crime; therefore, they do not fall under the double jeopardy rule. Should they be?”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 113, Q178.]

Her answer, in a word, was yes. I urge the Minister, if she will not accept the new clause, to consider a review into this important topic, which is widely supported by the public and a number of bodies.

I will now speak to new clauses 39, 40 and 41 together, while giving a little bit more detail on each one. They all relate to online sexual abuse of children. It might seem silly to say, but people seem to see online abuse as not as severe as abuse in a room, which is nonsense, because online abuse is a child being abused; they are just not in the same room as the abuser. I have to put a health warning on some of the examples that I will give, but I need to give them to explain. Hopefully no one in this room has any knowledge about what is going on out there on the internet, but unfortunately some of us work in this field and so do know. It is pretty chilling, hence my earlier attempt to put “trauma” into the police covenant.

I have worked really closely on these new clauses with the International Justice Mission, which is a fantastic organisation.