Clause 71 - Retrial
Criminal Justice Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 382, in
clause 71, page 43, line 42, after 'he', insert
'or in the event of his death or incapacity, his personal representatives.'.
The amendment raises a point that I raised with the Minister at a previous sitting. I said that I was slightly unhappy about the processes whereby a defendant lost the status of an acquitted person and wondered how he could regain it if the proceedings against him were then dropped for some reason. The Minister provided some reassurance that it was possible to apply for the original acquittal to be restored. I prefer to use the word ''suspended'', but he preferred to use the usual word ''quashed'', and we had a debate about that, which I do not want to revisit.
It seemed to me that, if the defendant dropped down dead between the date of the quashing of his acquittal and his rearraignment before the jury for his
retrial, there was no mechanism for his personal representatives to have his acquittal restored posthumously. I believe that such a person is entitled to the restoration of that acquittal, or his family are, so I tabled the amendment to try to provide a mechanism whereby that could happen. It may commend itself to the Minister.