Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 114)
TUESDAY 14 OCTOBER 2008
MRS CINDY
BARNETT JP AND
PROFESSOR JOHN
HOWSON
Q100 Philip Davies: In terms of punishing
the people who try to buy alcohol.
Professor Howson: Identifying
and catching them?
Q101 Philip Davies: The supermarkets
would refer to the police.
Mrs Barnett: We do not think that
it is for us to make that sort of comment. What we do is to apply
the law as it stands. There is a very clear law, as it stands,
with particular provisions in it, and that is what we apply. We
do not go around saying, "It ought to be different"
because that is not for us to do.
Q102 Philip Davies: Magistrates must
sit in courts and get horribly frustrated at the things that go
on that they cannot deal with effectively, and therefore must
have an opinion about things that should be changed.
Mrs Barnett: But we are still
members of the judiciary and we still apply the law as it stands.
We may certainly have a view as to whether or not something could
be improved but we have taken an oath to deliver the law as it
is, and therefore it is not easy for us to say that something
ought to be different in the way that you are suggesting.
Professor Howson: The general
point is that probably the 2003 Act had more impact on the off-licence
trade than it did on the on-licence trade. The on-licence trade
was relatively well regulated at that point. Local authorities
had put a lot more resources into the partnership types of activities
for the on-licence trade. Probably more thought about the off-licence
trade might well be necessary, particularly because it is a competitive
environment. People are selling a product and in an environment
which allows them to sell it at whatever price they can get for
it.
Q103 Helen Southworth: You heard
earlier the police officers describing the length of time it could
take for a review. Do you have any comments about the administration
of the process in terms of ensuring that there is as short a time
as is proper between a case being brought?
Professor Howson: It is very difficult
for us to say. Most of the process is out of our hands. We are
the judiciary, not the Court Service. It starts with local authorities.
Clearly, it will depend upon court time; it will depend on how
it is processed. We have been concerned, in terms of appeals,
in making sure that individuals were not priced out of a court
service where full cost recovery for fees was the order of the
day. You will see in the evidence that for an individual to bring
an appeal is £75 and for anybody else to bring an appeal
it is £400. We felt that it was important that individuals
were not priced out of that system.
Q104 Helen Southworth: Do you have
any comments about what should be appropriate for the timing?
Mrs Barnett: I would agree entirely
with John that it is not easy for us to say, but there was a suggestion
in what we heard the police say earlier—and I think it was
something to do with big businesses in particular—that the
process would be strung out and that it would be delayed. We are
all trained within an inch of our lives and certainly our inclination
is to resist adjournments. We do not go with playing the system.
We do not wish anything to be delayed. We want to get on with
things as fast as possible. Provided the information is before
us, we will try to proceed as fast as we possibly can.
Q105 Helen Southworth: So you are
alert to these issues.
Mrs Barnett: Most emphatically.
And it is not only in cases like this, obviously. It happens in
other cases as well.
Q106 Helen Southworth: Could I ask
you about what I think are called alcohol referral orders, reference
you can make if you understand that somebody who is before you
has a problem with alcohol.
Mrs Barnett: As part of a community
sentence?
Q107 Helen Southworth: Yes. Can you
describe how you think that works at the moment.
Mrs Barnett: Not, we think, as
well as it should—simply because it is one of the powers
that we have within the 12 requirements of the community penalty,
because obviously there are a large number of cases where alcohol
is a factor. Whether or not it is a drink-related offence, something
may come out that may mean that we feel it would be a good idea
to make such a referral order. We will do so when we can, but
we understand that there are not the resources available for the
treatment to be available in all areas of the country across England
and Wales. That is a big worry.
Professor Howson: A considerable
amount of resources have been put into drugs. Probably less resources
have been put into those programmes for alcohol.
Mrs Barnett: We do hear quite
frequently that there is some voluntary stuff going on, that people
are being helped, that there are things going on. That is absolutely
fine, we have no objection to that, but it is a power that we
have that we would always impose, if appropriate, provided, of
course, it is there for us to impose.
Professor Howson: Of course, one
has to say that people have to commit a crime which is serious
enough to have a community penalty. We have not lost what might
affectionately in the past have been called "the town drunk"
who is drunk and disorderly on a daily basis and comes before
us for a frequent but very low level offence. They would not qualify
for those sorts of programmes and the court could not order them.
That is an issue for the wider society. We tend to fine them,
and detain them until the rising of the court because they cannot
pay it.
Q108 Helen Southworth: Does the magistracy
get sufficient information about the availability of treatment
within the local community?
Mrs Barnett: We look into it.
We should have regular liaison with our local and national offender
management services—probation, in particular. It is simply
a fact that it is not universally available, and that does not
only apply to alcohol referral.
Professor Howson: One area where
it has been is drink driving, which is one that has been with
us for a very long time. The introduction of the opportunity for
people to get up to a 25% reduction on their ban if they attend
an alcohol awareness course has, I think, been very useful and
may well have helped to reduce the number of second offences in
that area. Clearly there are other areas where I am sure it would
have an impact on reoffending if the resources were available
to do it.
Q109 Helen Southworth: You may recall
that I said earlier that I have had a number of meetings in the
past few years in my constituency with all the interested parties
in the late night alcohol industry. The representatives of the
local magistrates' bench have attended a couple of those meetings
in order to inform themselves of what the position is within the
town centre. Is this something that you think would be useful,
if magistrates were informed about areas, about particular hot-spots
where there are particular difficulties?
Mrs Barnett: Information is what
we work on, so, yes, of course. That is something that we welcome,
provided the proper boundaries are in place. We cannot and must
not attend meetings in order to be told that we have or have not
sentenced properly or to have our sentencing influenced in any
way. But, as people, we live in our local communities, we know
what goes on, we go down the same high streets, we may go to some
of the same places and have a drink in the evening—not necessarily
at four o'clock in the morning—but general information is
something that is definitely welcomed, provided, as I say, the
structures are in place.
Professor Howson: I think most
of us who sit in court see the consequence of it and, therefore,
are not unaware of where the likely problems are. If there are
cases involving violence that come in front of us, we will undoubtedly
know which licensed premises or which areas they come from. But,
as Cindy says, information is clearly helpful to us.
Q110 Chairman: One licensing officer
submitted evidence to us that he felt the penalties which are
available to you to impose on those who are in breach of the Licensing
Act are insufficient to offer a deterrent. Is that your view or
are you pretty content with the penalties you have?
Mrs Barnett: I think generally
we are content. Something that is often felt is that, if a sum
of money, if we are talking about a financial penalty, is considered
low by someone who just looks at the figure, then it is marked
a "derisory fine". It is just a fact that people do
not understand it. We have to consider people's means, and therefore
a fine that is related to means may not seem a lot to somebody
else and it may be an incredibly heavy penalty for the defendant.
The other thing goes back to information. Depending on the type
of offence, if it is a question where there is a commercial gain
or there is a profit element involved, then we need to know about
it. We cannot sentence according to a guess; we have to have the
information. We rely very heavily on that information to be given
to us in court so that we can impose the appropriate penalty.
Q111 Chairman: I do not want to detain
you any longer. You have made a number of quite detailed points
about the way in which the Act is operating in your evidence and
obviously we will take account of those. Are there any in particular
that you would like to flag up?
Professor Howson: I think two.
One is the issue of a national register for personal licence holders.
We raised this during the passage of the Bill. We do not think
from the fact that it is not in place, that there is not one.
Somebody can gain a personal licence while studying for a hospitality
degree at a university, get a job in the hospitality industry
in another part of the country, and then commit an offence under
schedule 4 in a third part of the country, and it would be almost
impossible for that police force to be able to follow the audit
trail through.
Q112 Chairman: Who should do it?
Professor Howson: There are two
possible ways. One is that the local government gets its act together
and has a national database. The other is that personal licences
are taken away from those and given to a body that is a national
regulator—like the securities industry agency, which is
already registering people who deal with the problems outside
pubs, in terms of the bouncers and others. It is challenging,
particularly in terms of the protection of the children, for Parliament
if personal licence holders cannot be tracked if they move to
another area. The other is that you have heard concerns about
Temporary Event Notices. The fact is that I could apply for as
many Temporary Event Notices as I liked for this room in the course
of a year, merely because what I am applying for in terms of alcohol
is the sale and not the consumption. I could apply for a Temporary
Event Notice for your bit of the room, and, then, when I have
exhausted that, move on to another bit of the room, and then to
another bit of the room, and have as many as I like.
Q113 Chairman: Is that the case?
I had a huge amount of complaints that my village hall had exhausted
its allocation within the first three months.
Professor Howson: They probably
were not taking the advice as to how to get around the regulations.
Q114 Chairman: If they just move
the bar?
Professor Howson: If they just
move the bar, because it is important to realise that what is
licensed is not the consumption but the sale of alcohol and the
sale takes place in a very specific place. Providing there is
no crime and disorder objection, the police cannot object to it.
Chairman: I shall go back and tell them
that. Could I thank you very much. I am sorry it was slightly
truncated.
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