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2 Apr 2003 : Column 1020continued
Mr. Letwin: My hon. Friend adds to the benefits that I draw from the debate. Does he agree that, as one reflects on it, the bureaucratic disasters attending the introduction of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which we are only gradually beginning to see, were necessitated by precisely the problem to which he alludes? Does he also agree that there is altogether too great a chance that, if such a measure were agreed unamended, we would find ourselves with the need to produce a further ghastly bureaucratic measure to constrain the police's tendency to act in the way that he describes, which is exactly the wrong way to go about things?
Mr. Cameron: My right hon. Friend has foreseen the conclusion of my speech, but I shall say it anyway. We will see more convictions, but then we will see evidence of miscarriages of justice and evidence that the police rounded up the usual suspects, possibly because of the pressure that they were under, and that juries were prejudiced by hearing about previous convictions. We will then be back not necessarily to where we started, but possibly to a situation even worse than where we are now. In future, the law may have to be changed, as my right hon. Friend says; or we will have trials in which jurors will tend to have a very jaundiced view of the authorities prosecuting someone with previous convictions.
I have never seen the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall- Andrews) perform in court. I am a great admirer of his speeches, and perhaps it is
something that I should do. However, I can imagine that he would say: "Ladies and gentleman of the jury, my client is here for one reason and for one reason alone and that is because my client has previous convictions. That is why the police have rounded him up and brought him to this court." We can all imagine that. He would then be able to say, "Of course we have had a history of this happening in the past. People with previous convictions have been sent down for crimes that they did not commit." There would be celebrated cases and we would find that what was happening in our courts was not a return to common sense, which is what the Government want, but a flight from it. That is why I feel so strongly that the Government must think again, particularly about paragraph (d).
Mr. Edward Garnier: I rise with some diffidence. I must confess that I have missed about 50 per cent. of the debate. I am sorry about that. However, I am familiar with the issues. I am acutely aware that the guillotine comes down at 7.20 pm and that the constitution rolls on. The Minister must have an opportunity to reply to the many speeches that have been made and the arguments that have been advanced.
I shall contribute briefly to the debate so that those who come to study it hereafter do not get the impression that it was contributed to by only a few Members who had nothing better to do than sit in the Chamber on a warm, sunny afternoon.
I am sure that the purpose of the proposed legislation is well meaning, and no doubt the Government thought about it quite carefully. However, I am concerned, as are others, that the clause is defined as part of the target-hitting or message-sending agenda. Legislation should not be for the purpose of sending messages; it should be for the purpose of making law. If we are not careful, this piece of legislation will just become another early-day motion, or something similar to it, which we can all sign up to because it looks good and will go down well with the readers of certain newspapers. We can then all go home feeling that we have done something to achieve something betterre-election possiblyfor our fellow citizens who feel plagued by persistent criminals.
That is not good enough. The arguments that have been deployed this afternoon to unpick the clause that we would like to see amended are ones that need to be answered. They need time to be answered, and perhaps the Minister will not have enough time to deal with these matters today. I hope that his noble Friends in another place will listen to what has been said in the Chamber and will undo what the Government intend to do by means of the clause.
I sit as a Crown court recorder. I have not nearly as much experience as a criminal lawyer as the hon. and learned Members for Redcar (Vera Baird) and for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). However, my experience of sitting as a recorder and also, and more importantly, going to Judicial Studies Board courses is that real judgesfull-time judges and full-time magistratesare appalled at the low level of criminal justice legislation that we push through the House. We churn it out as though the House were nothing more than a sausage machine.
When I was last at a JSB course, which was about three weeks ago, a senior member of the judiciary came up to me privately and asked, "Are you serious about the contents of the current Criminal Justice Bill and its provisions in relation to previous convictions and bad character?" I said, "I am not, but the Government are, and the Government will have their day." By and large, most of the legislation contained in this great fat telephone book of a Bill will go undiscussed. The judge, like many of his brother judges, threw up his hands and said, "I suppose it makes good work for the JSB."
I urge the Government to pay close attention to the genuine concerns of the judiciary, who have to apply legislation in court when dealing with real criminal cases. I can assure the Minister that they do not enjoy being criticised later for applying badly drafted and ill thought-out laws that Parliament imposes on them. I urge the Government to think carefully before they whip Government Members, either here or in the other place, to support clause 85 as currently drafted.
I do not want to exaggerate, but the wording of the clause is silly and dangerous, and needs a lot of careful thought. If that not does happen, it will end up, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said correctly a moment ago, leading to miscarriages of justice; vast amounts of time and money spent in the Court of Appeal; and Parliament having to come back and look at the matter all over again. Nobody will be the winnernot the justice system, not Parliament's reputation, not the citizens whom we seek to protect by passing good legislation, nor, indeed, the defendants who, although they do not like to go to prison or be convicted, believe that when they are convicted they are convicted fairly under proper rules that they can understand and which everyone accepts as fair. I will not prolong the Minister's wait any longer except to say that there is a lot that needs to be said about this. A lot has been said about it, but the Government must think a great deal more carefully before they advance bull-headedly down the road of passing the clause without further thought.
Hilary Benn: May I begin by saying that this has been an extremely important debate? The importance that right hon. and hon. Members attach to the issue has been reflected in the speeches by Members on both sides of the House, to whom I have listened intently. I must confess, however, that someone who is not a lawyer might have been left slightly puzzled at the end of our discussion. We heard from some quarters the argument that the proposed changes in clause 85 are so radical and far-reaching that, as regards the operation of the criminal justice system, they will effectively bring the house down. We also heard the opposite argument, which was put most strongly by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews). He argued, as I understood it, that the clause will not make a lot of difference. The truth is, the Government are trying to find a balance in making the proposed change to the law. I am the first to recognise the anxiety that has been expressed about the changes, and I will seek to offer Members some reassurance.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: Could I correct a misapprehension? I agree with the general thrust of the
Minister's remarks. In truth, I do not think that the clause will make a great deal of difference, except for subsection (1)(d), which makes a very considerable difference indeed.
Hilary Benn: I am grateful for that clarification from my hon. and learned Friend.
During the debate, the Government were accused of a number of things in introducing the clause and the Bill. I want to put it on record that it is not our intention that the clause should be used, to pick up a concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), to round up the usual suspects. I acknowledge his expertise on the subject, which is probably greater than that of all other hon. Members, gained as a result of work that he has done for many years on miscarriages of justice. However, that is not the intention of the clauseit is not about trying to prejudice juries; it is not about trying to damage the rehabilitation of offenders; it is not about undermining the principle of innocent until proven guilty; and, to repeat a point that I made in the last debate, it is not about the prosecution no longer having to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt. The clause is intended to get the balance right.
There was wide agreement during the debate that the current law potentially provides for a large amount of bad character evidence to be admissible. That was accepted across the House. No one argued that that should not be the case. The question is whether the current arrangements for determining when bad character is admissible are satisfactory. All the evidence suggests that they are not. Those who have examined the issuethe Law Commission, Lord Justice Auld and othershave, if I may sum up in three words, described the present situation as haphazard, inconsistent and unpredictable. In other words, the current arrangements are a mess. That must be the starting point on which we are all agreed.
If we are agreed that the current system is a mess, it needs to be sorted out. The question that we are debating is, in essence, how evidence should be put before juries so that they can judge it in reaching their verdict. Three main issues came up during the debate. The first was whether we should have an inclusionary or an exclusionary approach. The second, which was touched on by the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney), was whether leave should be applied for. The third was to which categories of bad character evidence should the safeguards in clause 85(3) apply.
I shall try to address each of those issues in turn, but to illustrate the argument I shall refer briefly to two real cases. In Committee I cited the example of a High Court judge who was dealing with a horrific murder case involving a woman who was stabbed 81 times. The defendant in that case had previous convictions for using a knife and for beating people. Reflecting on the experience of presiding over that case, the judge wrote:
The second case was mentioned by one of my hon. Friends. Last month there were reports of a case concerning the alleged rape of a woman by a doctor. In the trial the complainant had not been allowed to give the proper circumstances of her story because that would have involved revealing to the court the doctor's convictions for sexual assault in respect of nine other patients. To add insult to injury, the complainant was cross-examined about a child whom she had adopted 36 years previously, the taking of a valium tablet, and an alleged sterilisation operation. In the light of her treatment, she said afterwards:
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