Clause 21
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
4:45 pm
David Burrowes (Shadow Minister, Justice; Enfield, Southgate, Conservative)
I am grateful for the Minister’s acknowledgement of our foresight and diligence in tabling the amendment, which has been followed dutifully by the Government, as in other policy areas. I do not wish to split hairs on amendments Nos. 21 and 140, which are very similar, and although ours is clearer and simpler, I would not wish to divide the Committee on the words.
Amendment No. 141 takes things a stage further. It does not deal just with the issue that was the subject of the previous amendments in allowing the flexibility and extension of referral orders to cover those cases when a defendant has been convicted on a previous occasion. We seek to allow a situation where, with a defendant who has had a referral order made against him in respect of a previous conviction, the court is enabled to decide in the particular circumstances whether to extend a further referral order. That often occurs in the youth courts where, sadly, referral orders are sometimes not implemented for weeks or months after the first visit with the youth offending team outside court and the defendant can commit another offence and come back before the court. The court is often proscribed from allowing a further referral order to be imposed even though the intent behind the order might work.
There are cases where it would be thoroughly inappropriate to impose another referral order: the defendant has had their chance to be diverted away from the criminal justice system and they should not have an additional opportunity, but there are instances where a defendant has committed another minor offence or one unrelated to the original one that was subject to the referral order.
Maybe there are circumstances where the referral order has not had its true impact on the defendant for reasons that may not be their fault, where it should be open to the court to have the flexibility to impose an additional referral order or, indeed, an extension. Amendment No. 141 seeks to provide for that and allow the insertion of an extra subsection to say that:
“(iii) if they have previously been referred to a youth offender panel under section 16 above, a further referral has been recommended by—
(a) a member of a youth offending team,
(b) an officer of a local probation team, or
(c) a social worker of a local authority.”
In those circumstances, given the intention in the clause to extend the flexibility and applicability of referral orders, I would like to move amendment No. 141.