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Ms Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley): Does my hon. Friend accept that sometimes the poor state of such records, as well as the fact that some may have been destroyed or are partial, can undermine the evidence given by children making allegations of abuse? Evidence that might have supported their stories, which so often rely on their individual recollections, may be missing. That, too, is a tragedy.
David Winnick: Again, that is a valid point, and surely it shows the need for records to be preserved. I do not think that there is any dispute about that.
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for letting me intervene at this stage. On the question of records, may I give him a practical example of how things can go badly wrong?
In my county of Leicestershire a few years ago, the city of Leicester was separated to become a unitary authority. It established its own social services department. As a consequence, employees of the previous Leicestershire county council social services department had their employment records split between the city and the county. In a number of cases, that has led to the losing or misplacing of records relevant to, for example, Operation Magnolia, which took place in my county. Will the hon. Gentleman bear that in mind when he considers the question of the safe keeping of records?
David Winnick: Yes, I will. I say to the hon. and learned Gentleman, as I said to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), that it is important for those records to be kept. I repeat myself, but I hope that the Minister, as I am sure she will, takes on board what has been said from both sides of the House about the need for evidence and for records to be kept, both of which are important. The hon. and learned Gentleman has given us an illustration of what can happen as a result of a local authority reorganisation.
Secondly, there are cases with no physical evidence, no forensic material and no written records. Sometimes, even the building in question has been demolished. Thirdly, the prosecution case almost always relies on the word of the alleged victim or victims. Fourthly, the willingness of the court to accept what we describe as similar fact evidence—that is, corroboration by the quantity, rather than the quality, of similar accusations—has led the police to engage in what is called trawling.
The police and the Home Office become rather disturbed or upset by the word "trawling", but that is the word that we have used. There is trawling using a wide net of former care home residents, which relates to finding out from a large circle of people, who were involved or not involved as the case may be, whether there is any evidence to support the allegations. There have been accusations that the police, at least in the early days of that practice, were rather careless in their corroboration of allegations.
Mrs. Janet Dean (Burton): Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that we heard evidence in the Home Affairs Committee of original complainants dropping their case while others brought into the investigation by the police carried on with theirs, which went to court?
David Winnick: Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend makes a good point.
David Rose, the special investigations reporter for The Observer, if not currently, then certainly in the past, is concerned about what he believes to be a number of miscarriages of justice. He has taken a prominent role, and some may have seen a television programme in which he featured. David Rose told us in oral evidence:
- "The problem with trawling as it is now carried out is that it is an absolutely unregulated process and it is a process which . . . is almost tailor-made to generate false allegations."
Mr. Gwyn Prosser (Dover): Does my hon. Friend remember receiving evidence of a clear indication that the basic police rules—the codes and guidance—are completely ignored during such trawling exercises? Does he recall a former children's home resident saying that he felt that he was bullied into making a complaint and that he was given the names of specific people from his former homes who had serious allegations against them? It was even suggested which forms of abuse had taken place. Does not that show how dangerous trawling is and how important it is to have video recording? Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that that has not been taken up?
David Winnick: We make our recommendation on the recording of questioning. I well recall the evidence given to us, which my hon. Friend mentions. It could be argued that the police are simply carrying out their duty in investigating those serious allegations. The police have a duty and responsibility in all these matters, although I am concerned that the Home Office response more or less dismisses the trawling situation.
David Winnick: I will give way in a moment. That situation is dismissed, and the police are rather sensitive to our using the word "trawling". I hope that the Minister takes on board the points that have been made, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser). I shall take the interventions fairly, so I give way first to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier).
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury): I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being generous in giving way. Surely the point on so-called trawling is that children are desperately vulnerable. By definition, there is no corroborative evidence, except what can be found from trawling. Although the police should never carry out the activity suggested by the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser), if trawling were to discontinue, so would most genuine cases. The answer, surely, is to remove compensation payments, which genuinely throw up false claims.
David Winnick: I shall say whether we believe that trawling should continue, but I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), who is a member of the Committee.
Mr. Marsha Singh (Bradford, West): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he think that the central problem of trawling is that when a case gets to
court and there is a conviction, it leads to guilt based on the volume of allegations rather than the quality of the evidence?
David Winnick: I shall refer to trawling, but I must give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), who takes a great interest in children's matters.
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre): Does my hon. Friend not accept that someone who was abused as a child and has suppressed the memory of that abuse for a long time, perhaps because of threats they experienced during that abuse, would regard becoming the recipient of what could more fairly be called dip sampling as validation of their experience? They would have a real opportunity to unburden themselves of the abuse.
David Winnick: Let me say immediately that if a child has been abused, no matter how many years have passed since the event, those responsible must be brought to justice. I hope that nothing said by me or recommended by the Committee, and nothing in any speeches or interventions made today, will give the impression that we do not want that to happen. If my hon. Friend has balanced the argument in that regard, nothing but good can come of it.
As I have said, we have reservations about trawling, but we do not think it should be prohibited, whatever name is given to it. My hon. Friend clearly wishes to give it a different name. We have emphasised that the police have a statutory duty to investigate allegations of child abuse regardless of whether they relate to contemporary or to past events.
The waters are often muddied by the prospect of compensation. That is another aspect that the Committee was not happy about. It has been suggested that the desire for financial compensation has been a motivating factor in many accusations, and even that on occasion the police have mentioned the prospect of compensation to potential witnesses. We do not suggest that that is typical, but it is certainly a complicating factor.
The Committee took evidence from a firm of lawyers which, at the time, was dealing with 20 group actions and 800 individual claims. Clearly child abuse allegations were big business to that firm, at least. I do not suggest that the firm was acting in a way that was not proper, but those facts must give rise to some concern about the way in which such cases are handled.
Bob Russell (Colchester): The hon. Gentleman has said that the firm was not behaving illegally, but does he agree that it was trawling for people whose cases it could take up in order to make a packet financially?
David Winnick: That may well be so. The evidence we were given shows that a former police officer was working for the firm at the time of our inquiry. We expressed some reservations about that.
Mr. Grieve: I assume that, given the changes in legal aid funding, the solicitors were handling the cases on a "no win, no fee" basis. A result favouring their clients would therefore have been of direct advantage to them.
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