Clause 8 - Common assault to be an arrestable offence
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
3:45 pm
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
The Constitutional Affairs Minister will see that amendment No.3 would leave out clause 8. I tabled it to alert him that I was going to raise some general issues about the clause. I reassure him that I am not seeking to have the clause deleted. However, one or two matters trouble me, and I would be interested in his views on them.
When I was first doing the job of Conservative criminal justice spokesman, I got the crime statistics for the period from 1942 to the present day, which make depressing reading. For instance, 685 robberies were reported in England and Wales in 1942, and the tally last year was 108,000. One could go on to look at the other figures. One thing that struck me most forcefully was the number of times in 1942—indeed, right through the 1940s; the figures do not change very much—when common assaults were reported to the police. I recollect that in 1942, the grand total was 39. The figure for a short time ago runs to several thousands per annum.
Oddly enough, I suspect that that statistic is slightly misleading. I am satisfied that there were more than 39 assaults in 1942. However, they were not reported, because a common assault, unaccompanied by battery, may be the sign that somebody is suffering at the hands of a violent partner; equally, it may amount to an issue of such utter innocuousness as ought not to trouble the police. Indeed, it is possible to assault
somebody by merely threatening them with violence, without so much as laying a finger on them.
I know the intention behind clause 8: to enable a situation to arise, particularly in the context of domestic violence, in which the police, provided that they are satisfied that there has been a common assault, can arrest a defendant. I am sympathetic to that. None the less, we have to consider what some of the perhaps unintended knock-on consequences of clause 8 might be. First, because common assault without battery would be an arrestable offence, there might be a greater inclination among those who wish to make false allegations to do so, in the knowledge that, although they could not show a reddened cheek or bruised arm, they might nevertheless interfere with someone's liberty, at least for a short period, through an allegation of the utmost frivolity—and being arrested is not a pleasant experience.
I foresee another problem: making common assault without battery an arrestable offence will mean that citizens can arrest other people who commit it. Once it gets abroad that that is one of the consequences that Parliament has brought about, there may well be further examples of people seeking to detain others for an offence that might be thought to be utterly trivial because no battery has taken place. That could cause problems.
I speak with a voice of, slight experience—I was involved in making a citizen's arrest in the not-too-distant past. The police are somewhat ambivalent about ordinary citizens getting involved in the administration of law and order, and although I hope I did not overstep the mark in any way—it was not suggested to me that I had—and the offence committed by the person concerned was undoubtedly arrestable, if somebody is acting in a way that amounts to nothing more than a common assault, I am conscious that it may be undesirable to encourage busybodies or passers-by to seek to arrest them.
I wonder whether the Government took that issue fully into account when deciding to make common assault an arrestable offence. The truth is that it has not been an arrestable offence in the past, and I suspect that there are very good reasons for that. As the Minister knows, if a police officer sees a person committing a breach of the peace they can arrest that person, and a breach of the peace may amount to no more than an assault in any event. I would be grateful to hear the Minister's views on that. Does he think that there is any risk of unintended consequences from what I otherwise understand to be a perfectly laudable aim?