Clause 86 - Interpretation
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
3:30 pm
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
I can assure my hon. Friend that the provisions would not apply to released convicted offenders such as Maxine Carr or Thompson and Venables, whose case was also widely publicly discussed. They are meant to protect witnesses of crimes and other individuals who are assisting the criminal justice system, not offenders. Our principal aim is to encourage members of the public to come forward and to support them. It is inevitable that some witnesses will have been involved in criminal activity, but they and the other categories of people to be covered will be at risk from the criminals against whom the case is made. That is entirely different from the cases of Maxine Carr or Thompson and Venables, and no one should see the provision as something that would encompass those individuals.