Written evidence to be reported to the House
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
1:15 pm
Stephen Shaw: Just by way of preface, the office has no view and expressed no public view on corporate manslaughter. My personal view is that I welcome the extension, when it comes, to prisons and police cells. We have a protocol under my current arrangements, a memorandum of understanding with the Association of Chief Police Officers, such that where there is a parallel police investigation—perhaps because a death has occurred and the police suspect homicide or assisted suicide or, indeed, if other health and safety or other charges are possible—under the terms of the memorandum we endeavour to ensure that we do nothing that might prejudice a prosecution.
The way in which the Bill is drafted is, I think, superior to the memorandum that I currently have, in that it makes it clear that it is my responsibility, or my successor’s responsibility, to decide what is or is not appropriate in the particular circumstances. Bearing in mind that my investigations and those of my office into deaths in custody are part of the state’s compliance with article 2, I think that the way in which the Bill is presented will enable me rather better to conduct an investigation in parallel with something that the police or the CPS are pursuing than perhaps is the case at the moment.