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6.47 pm
Mr. Rupert Allason (Torbay): There is no doubt that there is a gap in the law, and every hon. Member will be aware of complaints from constituents suffering from anti-social neighbours. I know of an individual in my constituency--I will call him Brian--who has made life intolerable for his next-door neighbour, a widow living alone and in a permanent state of terror. My concern is that the Bill is not exactly the answer to a maiden's prayer.
The widow has been advised that her neighbour cannot be prosecuted until he commits some kind of physical offence against her. That is of little comfort. The gentleman clearly has a mental problem and is well known to the psychiatric services in my constituency. He is unaware of the problems that he is creating, so this may be unconscious or passive harassment. Indeed, the lady concerned is sympathetic to his plight.
As I understand it, the Bill will provide both a criminal and a civil sanction in such cases. But what will actually happen? Will it result in the man going to prison? I am not sure that that will be the solution to his difficulties at all. While I welcome the principle of a sanction against harassment, I am concerned that it will not necessarily provide all the remedies needed by people of the kind I have described. I am not sure that the Bill will automatically be a remedy for anti-social neighbours.
My second point relates to the definition of conduct that is reasonable. Will journalists really be exempt? Was it reasonable for journalists to go to parents of victims of the Dunblane incident and persistently approach them for interviews? Under the Bill, two incidents will be sufficient to spark off a prosecution, or at least police activity, and I am concerned about precisely whose definition of "reasonable" will apply. I suggest that what journalists from the Daily Mirror or the other tabloids consider to be reasonable is not what other people consider to be reasonable. I ask the Minister whether there is any way to narrow the definition.
With regard to targeting, will the Bill cover a specific victim who is anxious about approaches from or stalking by an identified person, or will it apply to entire communities? What happens in, let us say, a close? No doubt right hon. and hon. Members all know of cases in
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The Bill will be used very widely indeed. I do not often agree with the Liberal Democrats, but when the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock) said that there was some doubt about whether there would be just 200 cases a year, I was inclined to agree. Many people will look to the Bill to meet their particular anxiety and provide a remedy for it. I suspect that that will go way beyond celebrities or vulnerable women being stalked, and it will certainly go way beyond the problem of anti-social neighbours. A large number of sharp lawyers will see considerable opportunities in the Bill. If the courts are to look to Hansard to discover what definitions and cases are described, it is important that the Minister should try to give clear examples of cases for which a remedy will be available under the Bill.
Having said all that, I have clear reservations and I am not convinced that a penal sanction will automatically be the solution to anti-social behaviour. Nevertheless, the widow in my constituency to whom I have referred will certainly sleep much more easily when the Bill reaches the statute book and she knows that there is at least an element of protection for her. It is to be hoped that the Bill will also have a deterrent effect--that the mere threat of an injunction, or a visit from the police threatening a legal case, will be sufficient to curtail the misconduct.
Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) on having forced the Government to bring the Bill before the House. Having congratulated her on that, I have to say that this Bill is not the Bill that my hon. Friend originally introduced, nor is it the Bill that many of us thought we would support.
The Bill is widely drawn and I, for one, would have preferred to have it deal with offences of racial harassment, sexual harassment and anti-social behaviour that were specific, direct and defined, rather than have them as they are. Praise is due for their being in Bill, but the terms are extremely nebulous. The powers in the Bill will depend on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said, organic growth in the common law. Nothing frightens me more than that, having seen how some judges interpret current law. They might narrowly construe some of the provisions in a manner that might not have been intended by Parliament.
Furthermore, like the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason), I am concerned that clever lawyers might seek to extend the scope of the Bill so that it involves matters such as trade disputes, as was hinted at by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths), and the role of investigative journalists. What is reasonable to one judge in the pursuance of a specific case might not be reasonable in respect of journalism. We are not talking only about invasions of the privacy of distinguished
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I turn now to the Bill, specifically clause 4, and to why the Bill was originally introduced. I shall refer to a case in my constituency which was known as the "Orchard Park seige". Briefly, the facts of the case are as follows. A woman in my constituency had an affair that she brought to an end. Not satisfied with that, the man involved criminally assaulted her, bound her and left her in a ditch, for which he was sent to prison. He served a short time, got parole and was released; he then started to pester the woman. She complained to the police, who, she believes, did nothing about it, even though the man was out on licence and he was alleged to have boasted in a local pub about what he intended to do to the woman. She also believes that the police knew that he had what turned out to be an imitation firearm. Some of these matters are the subject of a Police Complaints Authority inquiry, but this is what the woman feels happened.
Eventually, the woman was seized outside her home and bundled into it. Her daughter arrived some time later and was also seized. The man appeared to fire his gun. He viciously assaulted the woman, broke her sternum and raped her about a dozen times. After 14 days, the police successfully ended the seige. I have nothing but praise for the way in which the police handled a difficult situation. They believed that the man was armed and they knew that he had hostages whom he might kill.
The jury in the subsequent trial acquitted the man of rape. It is hard to imagine how the woman could have acquiesced in sexual intercourse in her physical condition at that time, having, as she did, a broken breastbone. The police in that case regarded the jury's verdict as perverse.
One of the problems in the case was the fact that some of the rapes took place when the daughter was in the room although she was told to turn her face away. She was petrified about giving evidence; nothing that the police could say would persuade her to change her mind. Throughout the period after the arrest, a policewoman lived with mother and daughter, looking after them, giving them every encouragement. Nevertheless, the daughter refused to give evidence. I believe that to be one reason why the man was acquitted of rape. He was given about 10 years for criminal assault. Had the Bill been law at that time, the police might have been able to halt that tragic series of events. I say only "might", because many aspects of that case remain to be examined.
What priority will the police give to cases of harassment? What judgment will they exercise? Where will harassment appear in their hierarchy of offences--above or below burglary, above or below actual physical assault? What is their subjective judgment of the complaint made to them? The subjectivity will create a variety of problems.
Another type of harassment arose in that case. The woman gave evidence for two days, separated by a screen from the accused, but in the public gallery were all the members of the accused's family, looking down at her
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Although the Crown Prosecution Service brought several charges of rape against the man, it did not bring them all; despite the perverse verdict, the CPS decided not to bring up the other cases. That woman had a horrific experience as a result of stalking and continued to feel deep resentment that she had been so abused, yet the man who did all that to her was not convicted of the violation of her womanhood, as he should have been.
Questions arise about matters that are not within the ambit of the Bill but arise from it. What should be the role of the social services in such a case? The woman was living in a council house. When the man was released on licence, she visited the local housing authority and asked to be transferred. She gave the reasons but did not go into all the details. Her request was therefore refused.
By chance, however, the man had been allocated a flat that directly overlooked the house in which the woman lived. She was conscious of him always being there, overlooking where she lived, and she was conscious of his actions. The local housing authority felt that it could not move him, because it was unaware of his record, and it did not feel that the woman had sufficient grounds to be moved, because, rightly or wrongly, she felt that she could not give all the details of what had happened to her. There is a need, therefore, for housing associations, local authorities and the social services to take into account the effects of harassment on people in vulnerable situations, especially women.
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