Clause 30 - Prosecution
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
Public Bill Committees, 13 February 2003, 9:15 am
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
Good morning, Mr. Hood. I shall be extremely brief. You have generously selected several amendments in my name to clause 39
that relate to vandalism. For the sake of clarity, will the Minister confirm that under clause 30, the police force that investigates
''an offence in the course of the exercise of its functions''
will also consider vandalism and trespass? If the answer is yes, what are the Minister's feelings about the discretion that the clause gives to the chief constable to institute criminal proceedings in respect of the offences?
Although I shall talk about the issue at greater length later, I should point out that there were 15,075 reported vandalism offences in 2001–02, but only 2,200 prosecutions. There were 15,395 reported trespass offences, but only 903 prosecutions. Does the Minister agree that those figures show that trespass and vandalism are not taken seriously by the BTP, or is there a different explanation?