Clause 69 - Criminal Procedure Rules
Courts Bill [Lords]
10:00 am
Mr David Kidney (Stafford, Labour)
Thank you, Mr. O'Brien. You have saved me from going down an avenue that I do not wish to go down even though my hon. Friend requested me to do so.
At present, for serious charges against very young defendants, the direction of the Lord Chief Justice is the guiding rule for our courts. When the criminal procedure rule committee comes to make its rules, it would like to examine the Lord Chief Justice's practice direction and consider whether it should go further than that and make rules that embed those principles in the system. It wants to go a step further and consider saying that the youth court is, more often than not, a better venue than a Crown court building for the trials of these particular cases. I note that section 78 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 states that a Crown court may sit at any other place in England and Wales. Clearly, that includes sitting in a youth court. Clause 30 proposes that magistrates courts can sit in places other than the usual court, so the legislative network exists to allow trials to take place in the most appropriate venue for a fair outcome to the trial.
I am also concerned about those tragic cases in which young children are seriously injured while in the care of their parents as a result of physical and violent assault, sexual assault or a course of behaviour that affects them mentally rather than physically. In such cases, the criminal authorities often take the view that there should be a criminal prosecution of the parents for the alleged conduct. At the same time, the local authority will wish to protect the children, so it might take them away from the parents and begin care proceedings in the family courts—usually the local magistrates court sitting as a family court.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Gareth Thomas) said that I was a solicitor. I am not practising at present, but I was a solicitor for 20 years and I dealt with many children's cases. In such cases, I found that the care proceedings involving the children were usually delayed for many months—if not for more than a year—until the criminal trial took place to see whether the parents were found guilty of the conduct that had damaged the children. The usual
reason given for that delay was that the parents were restrained from presenting their full case in the care proceedings because they had a right not to incriminate themselves in any criminal matter that was about to be dealt with in the criminal court. Often, the criminal trial had to take place first, and it took a long time because of the complexities of the case, so the children were left drifting in care for a long while. No permanent plans for them were made until there was a result to the criminal trial: only then could there be an end to the care proceedings. I am concerned about that. My plea with regard to the criminal procedure rules—and the family procedure rules, which we will come to later—is that we address that problem. It is unacceptable because the Children Act 1989 states that the welfare of the child comes first, and delay causes harm to children's development.
There have already been judicial attempts to stop that delay. In the Re TB (Care Proceedings: Criminal Trial) case in the Court of Appeal in 1995, Lord Justice Butler-Sloss said:
''Each case has to be seen on its own facts and considered on its own merits, and the welfare of the child has to take priority over the detriment to the family who are coming up for trial . . . One starts with the fact that the criminal proceedings of themselves are not a reason to adjourn the care proceedings.''
She went on:
''There is a Home Office circular that deals with any delay of civil proceedings pending the outcome of a criminal trial so that the criminal court shall be notified of the importance of bringing on that criminal trial as quickly as possible.''
Therefore, Lord Justice Butler-Sloss stated that the care proceedings should not automatically be held off for the criminal trial and, in any case, that the criminal court should be informed that something urgent is waiting on the outcome of such a trial so that the criminal proceedings can be expedited.