Clause 81 - ''Bad character''
Criminal Justice Bill
10:00 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman.
I should now like to consider clause 81. I apologise to the Committee if I have widened the scope of the debate, but all the clauses are so closely interlinked that it is difficult to disentangle them. One must look at the basic principles before one can start an examination of the clauses. The first thing that strikes me is that clause 81 is enormously widely drawn. Amendment No. 362, which suggests that we should leave out subsection (1)(a), was designed to illustrate that point. If it were omitted, it would make no difference, because subsection (1)(b) covers everything. It covers previous convictions, previous
acquittals, allegations that, as an eight-year-old, an accused misbehaved and was told off by his parents and that he was used to telling fibs. It covers everything, subject to judicial discretion. Its basic principle is that, unless someone decides that it should be left out, everything can go in. If we are to have paragraph (b), we do not need paragraph (a). I hope that that highlights the immensity of the scope of the proposed change.
On top of that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking has said,
''shows or tends to show''
is enormously wide. The words ''tends to show'' must be linked to the words in subsection (b), so that the legislation would read
''tends to show . . . that it might be viewed''.
That is the high point of the expansion of the doctrine—there is evidence that tends to show that someone has behaved or is disposed to behave in a way that, in the opinion of the court, might be viewed with disapproval by a reasonable person. That is all that is needed to get over the threshold of the principle of the admissibility of such evidence. That is going much too far.
I accept that some of the attempts to change the clause that we have made through amendments might not be ideal. However, all that we can do is to offer ideas to the Minister. If he thinks that there is some merit in the points that we are making about the scope of the clause, perhaps his officials can work on them.