Select Committee on Home Affairs First Report



LIST OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

1.    The murders committed by Stone caused very real alarm and raised very difficult questions as to the reconciliation of two powerful forces—the need to protect the civil liberties of those who have not committed an offence; and the need to protect society from the offence that they may commit.

2.    It would appear that the cumulative effect of both recent legislation and recent court rulings will be that an increasing number of dangerous people with severe personality disorder will serve life sentences rather than fixed terms of imprisonment.

3.    There are obvious attractions in a court order following conviction which sends the offender first to prison for a number of years and then for treatment in a secure clinical facility.

4.    We conclude that substantial initial expenditure will be needed for the future management of dangerous people with severe personality disorder, irrespective of what other changes are made in the law affecting them or the way the facilities are organised. This is a cost which, in the interests of public safety, we believe to be justified.

5.    The experience of the Netherlands, in our opinion, supports the proposals in option B for managing dangerous people in the UK.

6.    We recommend that the Home Office should publish the cost benefit analysis underlying its consideration of the options proposed, including the implications of adopting a TBS-type arrangement in the UK.

7.    There are differing views and approaches among medical professionals about treatment of dangerous people with severe personality disorder.

8.    We recommend that the Home Office, the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment should examine the costs and benefits of identifying in early adolescence individuals who may develop a severe personality disorder and become dangerous. It may well be that intervention before the personality disorder becomes settled in the late teenage years would have long-term benefits both for the individual and for public protection.

9.    We agree that a high standard of proof should be required, but the phrase "beyond reasonable doubt" cannot be meaningfully applied to diagnosis or prognosis in the way it can to fact. It is never unreasonable to doubt a prediction or a judgment. For this reason only, we do not believe that it is a useful test.

10.  We conclude that among the safeguards which ought to be introduced is a regular opportunity for Parliament to review the operation of any legislation to implement these proposals.

11.  We recommend that any legislation should be subject to annual report to Parliament by a Commissioner and annual renewal of the legislation by means of an order subject to the affirmative procedure in each House.

12.  We welcome the attention the Home Office is paying to bringing victims of crime closer to the heart of the criminal justice system. We endorse the suggestion that victims or their next of kin should be able to make statements about the effect a crime has had on them and for such a statement to be attached to the case papers. We also believe that the arrangements for informing and consulting victim's families under the Victim's Charter should apply to individuals detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 where appropriate.

13.  We recommend that the proposals should be applied to individuals only when an assessment predicts it is almost certain that they will commit a very serious criminal offence.

14.  We recommend that continued detention should be subject to regular review by a judicial body at stated intervals—on the basis of multi-disciplinary assessment and subject to independent medical opinion.

15.  On balance we recommend that a separate service as set out in option B is most likely to protect the public, meet the needs of the individuals concerned and satisfy the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights.

16.  We recommend that new powers to detain dangerous people with a severe personality disorder should be accompanied by the most stringent safeguards in order to satisfy the requirements of the Europan Convention on Human Rights, as well as the liberties traditionally protected by Parliament.


 
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