Clause 22 - Directions to individuals who represent a risk of disorder
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
2:00 pm
Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)
Amendment No. 161 would take out the word “likely” in clause 22(2) and replace it with the word “will”. It is a matter of raising the bar, because clause 22 allows the police extremely broad powers to give directions to people to leave an area.
Although I appreciate that Government amendment No. 87 tightens the directions, I am not sure that it goes far enough. A breach of such an order after 24 hours is a criminal offence, which moves the bar further into criminal procedure. However, the main problem is that the person who is subject to the order does not necessarily under the test in subsection (2) have to be involved in or the cause of the disorder. It would be sufficient for a police officer simply to judge it likely that a group of young people or an individual would contribute at some point in the future to disorder. As the sanction ends in a criminal offence, we believe that the definition should be tightened up.
Similarly, we would suggest that no offence needs to be committed, merely disorder, to justify making the direction should there already be evidence of disorder or rowdy behaviour such as that described in earlier discussions. Furthermore, the criminal offence of being disorderly—in addition to public order offences, offences of violence and criminal damage and even antisocial behaviour orders—exists to restrain drunken criminal behaviour. Anyone can be seen as posing a risk of disorder, and we do not have a time machine to see into the future.
Exercise of the power could interfere with the convention on human rights, noticeably under article 11 and article 2 of protocol 4, which protect freedom of movement. The test in clause 22(2) is difficult to determine as a matter of objective fact and we are concerned that such broadness of power might be applied arbitrarily—on grounds of ethnicity or clothing, for example. It may be that disorder is caused among drunken people by the mere sight of someone they do not like. To direct an individual to leave a locality may well be for that individual’s protection, but they will not be the cause.