Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Simon Reevell Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Reevell (Dewsbury) (Con)]

I shall concentrate on one aspect of the Bill: clause 30, which deals with self-defence and which has been touched on already by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara). The clause introduces important practical changes, but I wonder whether it concentrates too much on where things are happening and not enough on what is taking place.

The title of clause 30 is “Use of force in self-defence at place of residence”. It has been suggested that the result of the provision is that an Englishman’s home is his castle, but I wonder whether an individual grappling with a burglar at 2 am is worrying about where he is, rather than what is actually happening. In other words, is his concern the defence of his own person, rather than the defence of his property?

I hope that my examples will demonstrate the importance of that point. Imagine a person who runs a petrol station in a rural area and lives in a house 100 yards away. If he is attacked in his home, the new law will apply, but if he is attacked at the petrol station just as he turns out the lights and is about to lock up, or while he is walking from the petrol station to the house, it will not apply. Someone who works as a night watchman is protected by the new law while they are at home, but when they arrive for work, the provisions will not apply. A vicar is covered if the burglars come to the vicarage, but if he goes to investigate a light in the church at night and behaves in the same way there, the new law does not apply.

We have heard an interesting example involving a farmer. If a farmer hears a noise downstairs in his home and goes to investigate with a shotgun that he has taken from his gun safe in his hand, the new law will apply, but if, after he has been shooting legitimately, he is wandering back through his farmyard and goes to investigate a noise where all his expensive machinery is kept, and is then boxed in by the same people and reacts in the same way as in his home, the proposed law will not protect him.

Leaving aside the obvious point that we are asking people to remember that the law is different depending on whether they are at home, just outside their home or at work, notwithstanding the fact that they could be attacked by the same person in the same way and in the same early hours of the morning, a different test will apply if ever someone who is alleged to have breached the new law by behaving in a certain way is tried alongside someone who dealt with another member of the gang, but happened to do so in an outbuilding. The person who confronted one of the burglars in his home may rely on the new law, but his brother or son who behaved in exactly the same way towards another member of the gang in the outbuilding will not be protected at all.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is setting out an interesting argument. Does he accept that anyone who uses only proportionate force, given the circumstances as they believe them to be, will always be protected?

[Simon Reevell]

The point of the clause is to put in place the new test, but that test applies only in a dwelling.

The clause gets even more bizarre when we consider proposed new subsection (8B), which deals with the corner shop with a flat above. A shop owner who comes downstairs from the flat and meets a burglar in the shop premises will be fine, because he will be covered by the new definition, but the person who lives next door and has to step out on to the street before going into the shop to start their work there for the day, and who encounters exactly the same circumstances when locking up for the night, will not be covered. If those two people meet the burglar while the premises are open, the shop owner who lives on site has the advantage of the new law, because the shop is part of the building in which their flat is located, but his assistant does not, so a different test will be applied to two people in exactly the same circumstances and encountering exactly the same villainy—and, indeed, the same villain.That cannot be a sensible revision, and the reason is that the focus is on the place of residence as opposed to what the problem really is, which is self-defence.

If this was reconsidered, and if instead of the test relating to the dwelling it related to whether the person was a victim of a criminal enterprise, all the examples I have given would be neutralised, because in all of them the person concerned would have been a victim of a criminal enterprise, whether it was in the church, the petrol station, at home, walking from one to the other, at work as a night watchman or outside as a farmer. If that were the trigger, the person concerned could rely on the new test, but as it is drafted, all those contradictions apply.

Subsection (6) makes it clear that this would not be a retrospective provision, and I understand that, but the amount of publicity generated by this clause means that to a lot of people out there the law has changed already. It would be ridiculous to have somebody waiting to face trial in circumstances where once the legislation was passed, a prosecution would never be brought, because the test would have changed. In whatever form the section appears in the Act, it needs to be introduced as soon as possible so that people do not rely on it before it is available for them to rely upon.

I should have said at the beginning, and so I say at the end, that I draw attention to the fact that, as a practising member of the Bar, I have an interest.