Clause 57 - Orders in county court proceedings
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
6:45 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
In the light of the approaching guillotine, which I regret, I shall have to address the amendments quite briefly. The Minister knows that my party and I oppose such programming of Committees because it means that matters must be either rushed or not debated at all. I shall be grateful if the Minister would write to me with any response that he does not get chance to make on this important issue.
I move the amendment because of a specific case in my constituency. The chief executive of my local authority, with the support of the police, asked me to raise the matter, and no doubt the Minister will research its various legal aspects with his advisers. My local police and local authority were disappointed by a situation, although that would be too weak a word because the headline in my local paper talked of police anger at a judge's ruling. They were very upset at failing to obtain the full effectiveness of an ASBO in relation to the two most serious young criminals in my constituency. They finally obtained an ASBO, although the police, local authority and everyone in the community safety partnership in my area were annoyed by the bureaucracy and difficulty involved. The police felt, however, that the order would be fully effective only if the twin brothers were named and shamed.
Traditionally, we have had specific legal rules, the basis of which all lawyers and citizens will understand, which state that juveniles should not normally be named. The point about ASBOs, however, is that they are supposed to be different and to have a wider aspect, so that people in the community of a person who is the subject of an ASBO know to whom the order applies.
The situation in that particular case is slightly complicated because although the original district judge—who used to be known as the county court judge—refused to lift the anonymity of the two brothers, the police felt so strongly about the matter that they appealed to the High Court, where Mr. Justice Elias overruled the district judge's decision and sent the case back to the lower court to be reconsidered. However, to the regret of the police, although the High Court judge believed that the first district judge had applied the wrong criteria, he did not withdraw the brothers' right to anonymity. Most lawyers would understand that he was giving a firm hint to the district judge who reconsidered the matter that the case should be treated in a different way. Again, to the fury of the police, the second district judge reached the same conclusion as the first district judge, did not take the hint from the High Court judge and did not lift the right to anonymity, but he did so for a different reason. Who knows whether there will be yet another appeal?
I do not expect the Minister to accept the amendments, but I hope that he may, at least, be able to consider the matter over a longer period, in his usual helpful way, and decide that it is a serious issue. The local police and local authority in my constituency contend that ASBOs are different and that the normal rules concerning the anonymity of juveniles should be reconsidered. I am not suggesting a wholesale reform of the law or a whole new policy for juvenile courts, because in normal circumstances there are good reasons why anonymity should be retained. However, the strong view of senior police officers, the chief executive and those in my local authority who support him, based on the difficulties that they experienced in that case, is that we should introduce a provision to the effect that, in normal circumstances juveniles who are subject to an ASBO will be named and shamed, but that exceptional reasons may be argued as to why anonymity should not be lifted, introducing a reverse burden. I have put the issue before the Committee fairly and squarely, and I look forward to the Minister's response.