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Lord Thomas of Gresford: As the noble Baroness has--
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps I may finish the point. I am addressing it to the noble Lord because it is the point he raised. I shall finish the point and then the noble Lord can come back on it. If it did, I am not by any means sure that the jury would think the accused
deserving of sympathetic treatment by virtue of the fact that he had admitted that there were previous similar offences, and particularly if it emerged that at the previous trial the defendant had disputed his guilt, as he does in the current trial under the example given by the noble Lord.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: Perhaps I may answer the noble Baroness. Circumstances arise in different cases when of course the previous convictions of the defendant are disclosed. It may be to the advantage of the defendant to do so. One such circumstance is that referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. I would not hesitate to tell a jury in the circumstances outlined by the noble and learned Lord that many, many years ago an offence had been committed and that the effect of its verdict would be that the defendant would go to prison on a life imprisonment sentence.
Perhaps I may add one other point. I learnt my prosecution ethics at the feet of the noble Lord, Lord Hooson. I had to get down a very long way to do it, but I did. Thirty years ago he had a very straightforward ethic for prosecuting, which was to be tough but fair. Those who prosecute are human beings and they would reduce a charge, as I would, if I thought that injustice would follow if I did not do so. I would not fail to do that because of what some long-gone Home Secretary or government had decided.
Baroness Blatch: I hope the noble Lord will also include the caveat that it would be tough and fair, but consistent with the law of the land.
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: My noble friend said in the course of her comments that the normal wounding with intent case usually involved a man who went out armed intending to do injury. With the greatest respect to my noble friend, I do not believe that that is the normal case at all. On the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board we must see more of these cases than any High Court judge or anyone else. Invariably these woundings occur not with people setting out armed intending to cause injury, but as a result of a flare-up in a public house, usually on a Friday night, when somebody bashes another person with a glass. To my knowledge, both as a barrister and chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, that is a far more common example than someone going out armed.
We must face the realities of what actually happens. Whereas that person clearly needs severe punishment for an individual offence, is there any benefit to be gained by giving that person a life sentence and then saying, "Incidentally, I mean it to be only four years"? I do not think that there is any benefit. I suggest that this Bill would be better if we accepted that that kind of case does not fit in easily with the grave matters of rape, attempted rape and attempted murder which occur in this clause.
Baroness Blatch: There is such a gulf between myself as the Minister with responsibility for this Bill and my noble friend. I have to say to him that if
somebody takes a glass in a pub brawl and causes injury to another person with intent deliberately to do so, that person should jolly well be caught by this Bill.
The Earl of Onslow: I had not intended to intervene in this debate except that I would like to tell Members of the Committee this personal story. A man I know well had one, if not two, previous convictions for thumping people. He got involved in a punch-up in Guildford. He ended up by hitting someone who had hit him 20 minutes before with a cricket stump. He faced very serious charges. He came to see me and I gave him the following advice which, in the end, I believe turned out to be correct. I said to him, "All you must do is to go into overtime grovel, plead guilty, co-operate with the police and promise that you will never do it again and say that you are really, genuinely sorry". That is exactly what the man did. He was sentenced to community service. I do not believe for one moment that sentencing that man--who is hardworking, intelligent, has just got married and has contributed to the community--to prison would have done any good whatsoever, let alone sentencing him to life imprisonment. It is in relation to that kind of specific case that I have grave doubts about the moral correctness of mandatory sentences.
Baroness Blatch: The point made by my noble friend is an interesting one. The particular type of crime that my noble friend spoke about, I take it, was completely out of character for that man. My noble friend has said that he was not a violent person.
The Earl of Onslow: I am saying exactly the opposite. It was at least his second offence and that is the point I am making. He had got to the stage of growing up. Had he been sent to prison it would have ruined his life, cost the taxpayer a lot of money and done no good to the community at all. Of course, if it ever happens again he will go down for a very long time, and justifiably so. I genuinely believe that this man has been saved by not going to prison. Under this Act he would have been forced to plead not guilty and that would have been a bad thing.
Earl Russell: Perhaps I may offer a footnote to the exchange between the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford. The noble Baroness thought it extremely unlikely that a jury might be moved to acquit by the disclosure that a person had previous convictions and therefore might face a mandatory sentence. I know that the best guide to this is what happened when we last had mandatory sentences before the penal reforms of the 1820s. In those cases, as I pointed out at Second Reading, juries very frequently did perversely acquit. The noble Baroness has talked quite rightly about public opinion on crime. What she has not taken into account is that the public's attitude to crime in general is not always identical to its attitude towards an individual, live criminal about whom it has heard evidence in detail. That point is vital.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie: Perhaps I may make a second attempt to pose the question. Perhaps I was the
only one who did not understand. I make the observation that in the case of a person who commits an offence which, at the second or third instance, could incur a mandatory sentence, the records of the court hearing will have to be preserved for the rest of that person's life. Therefore, the circumstances of the first and second offence will be known to the court and taken into account. Am I right in believing that the records of such trials are normally destroyed after three years?
Baroness Blatch: That is not the case. Records are kept.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: When we discussed the Police Bill and an amendment had been successfully carried, the Minister described the then state of the Bill as a "dog's dinner". I have a dog myself and I do not believe that she would look twice at the sort of dinner that we are being presented with at the moment.
On a number of occasions the Minister referred--and I sympathise because she is in the unhappy position in which many of us, as practising lawyers, have found ourselves in the past of trying to sustain an unarguable case--to those who commit a series of similar offences. That is not the scheme of the Bill. There is nothing similar about having sex with a girl who is nearly 13 years of age and murder. There is nothing similar at all. So let us put the shibboleth of a long series of similar offences to one side. There is a case for putting that in context, but it is not the context of this Bill.
I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle, said about the general run of Section 18 grievous bodily harm cases. It is very rare indeed for practitioners to come across someone who has deliberately gone out with a weapon. Incidentally, as we are dealing with people who go out deliberately with weapons, if one looks at Clause 1, as I did in the long wastes of our earlier debate when the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, was not speaking--this is the party of brotherly love--robbery, which is a curse on society, is only a triggering offence if it is committed when the robber is in possession of a firearm or imitation firearm. Go out dressed in a balaclava and, with a machete or a chainsaw, terrorise the neighbourhood and your victim--and that is not a triggering offence.
There is no coherent thought behind the Bill. The examples given cannot be disputed. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said that it is easy to pick out exceptions. Of course it is; that is why we have judges to deal with exceptional, differing circumstances which vary so enormously across the spectrum of human activity.
It is said that the Crown Prosecution Service has been impugned by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. The noble Lord has done no such thing; he has simply pointed out the fact that, things being what they are, the Crown Prosecution Service charges down--not least for the reason offered by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow: so that it will get a plea of guilty. The example given by the noble Earl is a classic illustration of what is wrong with the Bill. My amendment is a modest--I would say that it is a drowning and despairing--attempt to try to improve what is virtually incapable of being saved in its
present form. As numbers are a bit on the thin side--although we have virtue on our side--I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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