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7 pm
Mr. Heald: It is noticeable that, since the scrapping of the anonymity of the defendant, the number of rape cases that have been successfully pursued and have resulted in conviction has fallen dramatically. Might not one reason for that be that the point is not lost on the jury that the person making the complaint is doing so anonymously, and is risking nothing? I am all in favour of that--I think that there should be an anonymity for the victim--but there is an unfairness, in that the defendant, who is not guilty at the time of the trial, has had his reputation ruined for life and, at the end of the day, it may turn out that the allegation is false. That unfairness is in the background of juries' thinking, and it is causing many of the problems.
Mr. Greenway: My hon. Friend makes a good point. We all accept that anonymity for the victim is an important prerequisite: it encourages women to report rapes or other sexual or violent offences, and I have no doubt that that is the correct approach. However, anonymity has a number of unfortunate consequences. For instance, as my hon. Friend says, someone who intends to make a malicious complaint has nothing to lose. The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed made that point too.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley): Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, although the woman's name may not be printed in the press, she has to stand up in open court, facing the person whom she has accused, in front of the jury, the judge and court officials, and make her case?
Mr. Greenway: All that is true, and is taken as read; but it does not explain another fact to which I was about to refer. The research paper that I mentioned earlier gives reasons other than those given by the Minister for the fact that the attrition rate is so high, and the fact that so few rape allegations result in convictions. One reason is that allegations are subsequently withdrawn--a factor that is not a feature of other criminal offences.
The Minister asked us, quite openly, to give a reason for the fact that rape and other sexual offences should be different. I think that we have made our case. The stigma, and the consequences, are different in the case of rape--not just because of the anonymity involved, but because it appears for some reason that an acquittal, or the withdrawal of an allegation, does not result in anything like the prominence in the press that was given to the original allegation. There is always the lingering suspicion that the acquittal was not justified, or that there was some truth in the allegation but not enough evidence to sustain the prosecution.
Mr. Heald:
No smoke without fire.
Mr. Greenway:
My hon. Friend states the reality that the House must face.
Mr. Heald:
I am sorry to exploit my hon. Friend's good will, but I have become interested in the debate. Does he agree that the unbalanced position on anonymity has two bad effects? First, it is bad for the defendant if he is acquitted and people say that there is no smoke without fire. Secondly, it undermines the case of women who have been wronged and treated appallingly, because in court, they are undermined by the ever-present suggestion that they are making their accusation with the benefit of anonymity, while the man's reputation is on the line. That undermines cases that should be pressed home successfully to a conviction.
Mr. Greenway:
My hon. Friend tempts me with a road down which I do not wish to go, because I do not want to dispel the spirit that existed within the Committee and encompassed some of the Government Members. However, he makes his own point extremely well.
We shall not have an opportunity to discuss this important issue again for a while, but time is pressing and in an effort to be brief, I missed out a page of my notes. One of the important points on that page is the one made by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed--that in rape cases, the lack of anonymity for the accused, or the defendant, or the alleged perpetrator leads increasingly to the anonymity of the victim being breached and her identity being disclosed.
The fundamental reason for that development is clear in the research: it is that the number of stranger rape cases as a proportion of all rape allegations is falling, but that the number of so-called acquaintance, intimate or date rape cases has increased substantially. Therefore, there is a far greater prospect that, by publishing the identity of the alleged perpetrator, the identity of the victim will be disclosed. It seems logical to conclude that, if the priority is to give protection and anonymity to a victim, any matter that undermines that anonymity should be a matter of concern for the House, and that some adjustment to the law is justified.
When he referred to the Home Office review of sex offences, the Minister said that the anonymity issue was outwith the scope of that review. That surprises me, because the document given to us at the seminar that the Minister kindly and helpfully arranged sets out the terms of reference for the review. They are:
It will be clear that I do not seek to press this matter further. Early Thursday evening, when the House is about to adjourn for the week, may be an unfortunate time to have this debate. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) laughs, but although I do not think that we shall have a long Third Reading debate, there was a statement that lasted an hour, and the Government have known for days that it would be made today.
The House ought to return to this issue. The other place will do so. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed for his support, and I ask the Minister to think again about including the issue in the important review of rape that his Department is currently undertaking. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Boateng:
I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 13, line 24, leave out 'section' and insert 'subsection'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 5.
Mr. Boateng:
The amendments are the direct result of representations made to the Government by my hon. Friends the Members for Luton, South (Ms Moran), for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), for South Swindon (Ms Drown), for Rochdale (Lorna Fitzsimons) and for Stretford and Urmston (Ms Hughes), among others. They are designed to ensure that all sexual offence complainants will be eligible for help unless they say that they do not want to be eligible. Every sexual offence is likely to be distressing and frightening. It represents an assault of the most intimate kind and, if the complainant and defendant know one another, a betrayal of trust. In Committee, I agreed to consider whether complainants in sexual offence cases should have a greater degree of certainty that they will be deemed eligible for assistance. After consideration, I agree that the particular nature of sexual offence cases and the problem of attrition in those cases demand that we give sexual offence complainants greater certainty. They should have the certainty that they cannot be judged ineligible for help unless they do not want help. The debate in Committee was enormously significant. It was enhanced by the representations made by the hon. Members whom I have mentioned, not forgetting the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela Smith), who brought the point home with particular force and has used her
Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon):
The amendment gives the complainant the strongest possible presumption that special measures should be adopted unless the witness does not want them. As one of those who have argued for the strengthening of the clause, I welcome the amendment. The amendment allows the strongest possible assumption, but not an absolute automatic right to special measures because the judge could decide that none of the special measures would help the witness. The intention of the clause is that it would be incredibly unusual for someone not to be given at least a screen, but it still allows for no special measures to be applied. A justification for that is the European convention on human rights, which we have now incorporated into British law. Article 6 of that convention says that everyone is entitled to a fair trial.
"To review the sex offences in the common and statute law of England and Wales, and make recommendations that will: provide coherent and clear sex offences which protect individuals, especially children and the more vulnerable, from abuse and exploitation".
I accept that the anonymity issue is not covered by that, or by the second requirement--that the recommendations should
"enable abusers to be appropriately punished".
However, I suggest that the anonymity issue is covered by the third strand, which is that the recommendations should
"be fair and non-discriminatory in accordance with the ECHR and the Human Rights Act."
Even setting aside those cases in which a trial results in acquittal, and concentrating only on those cases in which the allegation is subsequently withdrawn and the
woman admits that she was not telling the truth, I putit to the Minister that it is not fair and not non- discriminatory to give anonymity to rape and sex offence victims, but not to people who are, in many cases, maliciously and falsely accused. There is a human rights dimension to the question of anonymity for those who are falsely accused of rape and sexual offences.
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