House of Commons
Friday 23 July 1999
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Orders of the Day
Criminal Cases Review (Insanity) Bill [Lords]
Order for Third Reading read.
9.33 am
Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I need not detain the House long. This Bill has one simple purpose, which is to plug a small gap in the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. That Act set up the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which deals with alleged miscarriages of justice. The Bill empowers the commission to deal with cases--there are likely only to be a handful--in which a person has been found guilty but insane. That verdict was available to the courts until the 1960s, when it was replaced by a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
The Criminal Appeal Act 1995 empowers the commission to deal with verdicts of not guilty by reason of insanity, but no one, myself included, foresaw that there might still remain a handful of disputed cases that dated from the earlier era when the verdict was guilty but insane. Consequently, the 1995 Act made no provision for such cases.
The case that brought the anomaly to light was that of Iain Hay Gordon who in 1953 was tried in Northern Ireland for the murder of a young woman. The case attracted enormous interest since the victim was the daughter of a prominent judge. There are good grounds for believing that Mr. Gordon was neither guilty nor insane, but those are not matters that need detain us--suffice it to say that Mr. Gordon, who is now frail and elderly and has long protested his innocence, applied in 1998 to the Criminal Cases Review Commission for his case to be re-examined.
The commission, after seeking legal advice, decided to refer back to the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal the issue of whether it was empowered to consider cases involving a verdict of guilty but insane. The Northern Ireland Court of Appeal ruled that it was not--hence the need for this Bill.
Lord Ackner first attempted to introduce a Bill for this purpose in July last year, but it unfortunately failed to become law for lack of time. In March this year, he introduced the Bill before us, and as he said at the time, the omission of a verdict of guilty but insane from the 1995 Act is an error that has created a "longstanding and
tragic absurdity" in the case of Iain Hay Gordon. Such an outcome was never intended by any of those--and I was one--who played a part in the passage of the 1995 Act. This Bill seeks to rectify that.
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst):
Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether there is a significant number of other likely cases in this category? Are we dealing with only one known case, or does the hon. Gentleman believe that there might be others--perhaps only a small number--to which the benefits that he is claiming for the Bill would apply?
Mr. Mullin:
I am aware only of the case of Iain Hay Gordon. Although I could not give the right hon. Gentleman details, I have heard that there is at least one other, but it is unlikely that there are more than three or four because we are talking about cases that date from before the mid-1960s.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough):
Even if the Gordon case is the only one which this Bill will correct, does the hon. Gentleman agree that that of itself is sufficient reason for passing it?
Mr. Mullin:
I most certainly do. If Mr. Gordon is innocent, he has had hanging over him for more than 40 years a considerable burden. He wants to see that put right before he dies. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is extremely keen to deal with the case expeditiously, but cannot do so until the Bill becomes law. I therefore hope that everyone will co-operate towards that end.
I thank all those who have helped to address this problem, not least the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and Home Office civil servants, for the constructive part that they have played in the drafting and passage of the Bill. I acknowledge, too, the helpful approach of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and thank the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean)--himself a former Home Office Minister--for the constructive approach that I understand he intends to take.
I hope that the commission will do all that it can when the Bill becomes law to expedite consideration of Mr. Gordon's case. I am aware that it has a large backlog of cases and a policy of not giving priority to those who are at liberty unless there are exceptional circumstances. As I said in response to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), there clearly are exceptional circumstances in this case: getting on for 40 years have elapsed since Mr. Gordon was convicted. Many of those who were directly involved in the case are already dead and Mr. Gordon is elderly and not in the best of health, and wishes to see the matter resolved in his lifetime.
I also gently draw the attention of the Criminal Cases Review Commission to recommendation 7 of the recent Home Affairs Committee report on the commission's work, which expressed the hope that, in the light of extra resources made available this year, some progress would be made on the backlog of cases involving persons at liberty.
I was glad to hear yesterday that the commission has started preliminary work on the Iain Hay Gordon case. I hope that the commission will regard the smooth
passage that Parliament will, I hope, grant the Bill as a signal that we expect Mr. Gordon's case to be expedited. I, for one, will follow progress with interest.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough):
I am most grateful to be called to speak, not only because I wish to support the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) in ensuring the Bill's passage but because, like him, I take a great interest in miscarriage of justice cases. The hon. Gentleman knows, as other Members of the House who were Members before 1992 may know, that my predecessor as Member for Harborough, Sir John Farr--now sadly dead--took a great interest, with the hon. Gentleman, in the case of the Birmingham Six.
I hope that I do not embarrass the hon. Member for Sunderland, South when I say that that was a most unusual marriage of minds. The hon. Gentleman is a radical journalist and a member of the Labour party and, apart from being a civilised person, has little in common with my predecessor--a farmer and a business man of the old school, who one might think would have no interest whatever in the misfortunes of the Birmingham Six. However, at least some of them ended up in Gartree prison for a while, which is in the Harborough constituency, and as a result of his going to meet and speak with some of the Birmingham Six, Sir John came to understand that there might well have been a miscarriage of justice in that case. Without the work of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South, with the help of my revered predecessor, the Birmingham Six might have been in prison to this day.
I come at this issue from a personal position of great interest in the justice system. I come at it as a practising member of the Bar--albeit I do not practise in the criminal courts except as an assistant recorder--and, I hope, as someone who generally is interested in injustice and putting right things that have gone wrong.
If the intervention that I made on the hon. Member for Sunderland, South does anything, it shows that if one man still lives who has or may have suffered a miscarriage of justice as a result of a drafting lacuna in the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964--which changed the relevant verdict in matters such as this from "guilty but insane" to "not guilty by reason of insanity"--and has been denied a proper review of his case, it is right and proper that the House, irrespective of party differences about law and order and so on, if they exist, should give the Bill a Third Reading.
Mr. David Maclean (Penrith and The Border):
Surely my hon. and learned Friend does not consider this case to be a priority for the Criminal Cases Review Commission? As the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said, Mr. Iain Hay Gordon is at liberty, whereas others whose cases need to be reviewed are still in prison. In those circumstances, does my hon. and learned Friend agree that this case, although deserving, is not a priority?
Mr. Garnier:
I do not know whether our deliberations today will order the commission's priorities. However, if the Bill becomes law, it will allow the Criminal Cases 9.40 am
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