Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-92)
30 NOVEMBER 2004
MR REG
DENLEY, MR
NEIL PILKINGTON,
MS HONOR
RHODES AND
MS DAWN
ROBERTS
Q80 David Winnick: Another
lot of critics say "Well, you know, what is it all really
about?" and of course over a third of ASBOs are subsequently
breached. What would be the response to that? You have this emphasis
on Anti-social Behaviour Orders, you tell people who are adversely
affected by violence or certain anti-social behaviour—which
none of us would wish to put up with—there is no reason
why they, as our constituents, should have to put up with it.
At the end of it all over 33% of such orders are breached so they
are not that effective the critics argue. Who is going to answer
that?
Mr Pilkington: If you are saying—I
do not know the current percentage—33% are breached 67%
are not breached, the majority there is that people comply with
it.
David Winnick: That is one way of putting
it.
Q81 Chairman: If I build
on Mr Winnick's question, the real critics would say that a third
are breached because they are taken to court as breaches, therefore
it is reasonable to assume there are a number of breaches that
are never taken to court. So perhaps you cannot even claim 67%?
Mr Pilkington: The difficulty
is I do not think we have clear statistics. We know how many breaches
there are and if we drill down into the figures we could find
out what disposals take place. Certainly within our CDRP I have
not got the figures for what those breaches are because I know
that some of our breaches are "You breached your ASBO because
you robbed someone of their mobile phone" and they are charged
with both offences to reflect that they are on an order not to
threaten violence and also the robbery. The question there is
these are the people who are at the heavy end of offending and
are probably so far into the system that the deterrent of an ASBO
is not something that plays on their mind, there are others who
will say "I am glad now I have the ASBO because it has made
me realise that". We have reduced the occasional teenager
to tears when he has realised suddenly he has got to change his
ways, and it has happened, but you do get to the stage of the
court door before they realise. The friendly warning at the outset,
they brush aside because everyone is told they have got to change
their ways but they never do.
Q82 David Winnick: What
does a court do normally in your experience when an order has
been clearly breached?
Mr Pilkington: There are a significant
number of young people who go into custody with breaches of ASBOs
but that can often be linked to other significant and serious
offending. I have found the courts have been willing to look at
sentences more serious than those that you would get if it was
behaviour that was an offence. Someone who is committing an offence
of basic public order, causing harassment, alarm and distress
but is in breach of an ASBO instead of receiving a small financial
penalty or a conditional discharge, I can think of at least one
case where they were made subject to a curfew and an intensive
support supervision package. I do not see custody as being necessarily
the outcome that we are looking for but it is saying, "You
have reached the stage of having the ASBO because of serious and
persistent conduct over a period of time" and the breach,
even minor, now enables the court to put in far more significant
resources from the YOT team to try and tackle that behaviour.
People have been receiving custodial sentences for crossing the
red line on the map and going into another area, and I know that
causes concern, but the red line on the map can be outside the
corner shop where they wreaked havoc for many years. Again, it
is why was the order made and what is the impact on the victim
of the anti-social behaviour who has been victimised for years
seeing that person in the area they have been excluded from. I
never quite buy the definition technical breach that many people
talk about, it is a breach of the order just as driving a car
whilst disqualified is a breach of an order whether you do 70
miles an hour on the M6 or 100 yards along the road to pop to
the chip shop.
Q83 David Winnick: Your
local authority monitors the position or do you have to be chased
up by the residents who say to you or through the councillors
"The same trouble is occurring and nothing is happening as
a result of an Anti-social Behaviour Order"?
Mr Pilkington: When an order is
made obviously one of the first things every organisation that
is involved should do is to inform the people who have been coming
forward to complain as to what has happened. Obviously we use
publicity as and when appropriate including leaflets, and on one
occasion posters, to inform communities and say to communities
"If you are aware of breaches please come forward and tell
us".
Q84 David Winnick: What
about this naming and shaming? There was this case, was there
not, which Liberty took up in Neasden—
Mr Pilkington: London Borough
of Brent.
Q85 David Winnick: —Neasden/Brent,
not far from where I live but, be that as it may the photographs
were shown, the case was taken to the High Court as an infringement
by Liberty, fortunately the court threw it out. Do you have such
leaflets naming and shaming?
Mr Pilkington: We have leaflets.
As I say, on one occasion we put posters up on an estate with
particular problems of anti-social behaviour by a gang to inform
the communities of the making of the orders, the nature of the
prohibitions and where they could report breaches to but we do
not see it as naming and shaming, we see it as providing information
to communities. I must admit when we put the posters up, having
discussed it and thought about it, I was not quite prepared for
the media interest that occurred. I would say that 99% of the
media interest was very positive and certainly anecdotally within
those communities, the community was pleased they were aware of
what was in place and they told us also that they knew that the
youths knew that the community knew and the youths had changed
their behaviour and were now not as intimidating because they
knew that people could say, "If you carry on like that, I
can report you to the police and you will be arrested and you
will go to prison." Obviously, once the information is out,
it is difficult for a local authority or the police to control
how it is used. I know that the press will use it as naming and
shaming in some of the headlines, that is not why my CDRP or any
CDRP does it, we do it to inform communities and that has been
a vital factor in trying to tackle the problem.
Q86 David Winnick: Mr
Denley, would you be happy with that, whether you call it naming
and shaming or some other expression, the photographs of the people
concerned being shown?
Mr Denley: It has not happened
in our area but I would say that, yes, if the information is not
known then how well can it be enforced? We would try and make
young people aware because part of anti-social behaviour to me
is the intent to create harassment. If those young people gathering
in groups have not realised that their behaviour is intimidating
then we point it out to them and sometimes it changes. That is
why the successes with everything we do are linked to how they
are perceived by others. If the intent is there to intimidate
others, and that is what they are getting their thrills out of,
then if an order is made and the public are not made aware of
the order being in place, how is it ever going to be sanctioned?
Yes, I would be in favour of it.
Ms Roberts: I do not have as much
of a problem if you have come to the end of the line and young
people have had a number of opportunities, they have gone on an
ASBO as a last resort. In Birmingham it is not always as a last
resort, sometimes they are not even in the criminal justice system
and they are coming into the system for the first or second time
and we know they are going through the civil courts for an Anti-social
Behaviour Order. Some of the conditions on those orders sometimes
seem harsher than if the young person has gone into the criminal
court. We had one where a young person was on a curfew and could
not leave the house from eight onwards until he was 18, and he
was only 14, unless his parents went with him. They wanted a lot
of publicity around the area, the Partnership said "No"
because they did not feel it was proportionate. I do think there
needs to be a handle on what comes out because I do think sometimes
there can be a flipside to this for the public, that it creates
more fear and you think all young people could be in this category.
I would like to see more positive stories, maybe about how witnesses
or victims can get, or have got more support in addressing anti-social
behaviour, and that angle. As I say, I am not as concerned where
young people are at the end of the line or their behaviour is
persistent, I just worry sometimes where perhaps they are not
and you are attracting an individual to be labelled. Sometimes
you want to get them out of that behaviour into more positive
behaviour, not to have other youths who might think "this
is quite exciting" hang around them because they want to
be associated with them.
Q87 Chairman: Can I challenge
you slightly on that. Are you absolutely certain that what you
are describing is not just a slightly professional resentment
that some RSL has gone and got an ASBO without going through the
whole structure of the Youth Offending Team and, in fact, in fairness
to you, they may have been dealing with the problems in their
estate or their block of housing which were so extreme they had
to go straight for an ASBO?
Ms Roberts: Yes, I suppose I am
looking at it from an individual who may not have come into the
criminal justice system. Their behaviour, if that bad, the police
would have been looking at other methods of engaging with them.
You could have a naming and shaming for an Anti-social Behaviour
Order whereas someone in the youth court who has got a string
of persistent crimes might not get named and shamed. I think it
is making sure there are checks and balances to individual cases.
Q88 David Winnick: You
will be pleased to know, Ms Roberts, that in my constituency,
not very far from Birmingham, I will take this opportunity to
point out that a large majority of young people are not offenders
and they should not be demonised in that way. What is the feeling
of the witnesses of the Government's intention to extend the penalty
notices for disorder to ten or 15 year olds? Is that a good idea,
Ms Roberts? From your facial reaction it does not look as though
you consider it a good idea.
Ms Roberts: There was one thing
I liked and another I was concerned about. What I liked was the
idea that young people would not get a criminal record if they
had a penalty notice. What I do not like so much is that parents
who can afford it can therefore pay for it and parents who cannot,
because the fines are quite high, may decide not to take it up
or may take it up and then it causes more family conflict, because
we know some of our young people come with child protection issues.
We have to be considering what that might mean for parents faced
with paying that fine. There is no means test on this penalty
notice and I do not know if you could have the choice of something
else instead, some reparation which does not get a criminal record.
If some parents are given the choice, that is good, and it could
be okay. I am just a bit concerned it will hit those who cannot
afford it harder than those who can.
Q89 David Winnick: Some
ten year olds can cause quite a problem, is that your experience,
Mr Pilkington?
Mr Pilkington: There are some
ten year olds who are a significant problem. We had an Anti-social
Behaviour Order against a ten year old, who is now 11, and was
subject to a supervision order for his breaches. If there had
been a fixed penalty notice for him, his mother would have ignored
it, would not have paid it and he would have been into the system.
I think we need to wait to see the five or six areas that are
evaluating them as an option, to see what comes out of that. I
think it is certainly a useful process if it takes people out
of the criminal justice system and deals with a lot of the issues.
I think potentially a lot of the parents who will respond to the
fixed penalty notice might be those parents who would respond
to a knock on the door from an anti-social behaviour officer saying,
"Your son has been seen doing this, can you control him"
and will try to control their children in any event, regardless
of the payment of £30 or £40, whatever figure is set.
Q90 David Winnick: You
just said "sons", do we take it that it is, in fact,
only a very small minority who are females involved in this business?
Mr Pilkington: I will plead the
Interpretation Act, Mr Winnick, "he" means "she"
in all legal proceedings. I think that whilst the behaviour we
are talking about is traditionally seen as the behaviour of young
males, there are a significant number of young girls who are now
getting involved and perhaps are harder to control because we
have not got the skills and experience of dealing with them. There
are issues around congregations of groups and the use of alcohol
and the impact of that. You get into the whole realm about the
protection of young girls for a variety of reasons, issues around
under age sex, sexual health and those issues which seem to flow
from groups congregating, alcohol, drugs and the like.
Q91 David Winnick: The
Family Welfare Association is with us: penalty notices for ten
to 15 year olds?
Ms Rhodes: I have a completely
different anxiety about this in that we give away nearly a million
pounds a year in grants to families who cannot afford the essentials
and I can see the penalty notices being one of those things that
families come to us for because they cannot afford to pay for
them.
Q92 Chairman: Just one
last question, do any of you have direct experience in your areas
of the Section 30 Dispersal Order?
Mr Pilkington: I have experience
of a Section 30 Dispersal Order in my home town. We have not had
any Section 30 Dispersal Order in our area, although we have highlighted
a number of areas, we have tried other interventions and they
have solved the problems to an extent.
Chairman: I will raise that at another
session. Can I thank you very much indeed. It has been an extremely
informative and valuable session.
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