Clause 19 - Offence
London Olympics Bill
12:00 pm
Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the Minister. I fundamentally disagree with him, but the Government are entitled to their view. We are talking about fines that will be greater than those usually applied by magistrates and a possible criminal record. Clearly, the full force should be applied to those who intend to commit such crime, but the provision could place a huge burden on many small businesses that may inadvertently do things with no intention to create a connection. Nevertheless, I accept that the Minister feels strongly about the issue. Therefore, I ask him to explain paragraph 110 of the explanatory notes, where it says:
“Clause 19 places a ‘reverse burden’ of proof on the defendant to prove that they did not know that they were committing an offence in relation to the advertising regulations, or took all reasonable steps to avoid doing so.”
It is difficult to see how that could be done in some circumstances. It continues:
“This is consistent with the presumption of innocence, particularly as the matters subject to the reverse burden are matters within the knowledge of the defendant and which would be difficult for the prosecution to prove.”
Would the Minister explain to me the phrase
“This is consistent with the presumption of innocence”?
How can there be a “reverse burden” in the first sentence that is consistent with the presumption of innocence in the second? Will he at least acknowledge that there is an error in the explanatory notes, or is there some other way of explaining two mutually incompatible phrases?