Coroners and Justice Bill
10:51 am
Maria Eagle: If, in the course of an intimidatory tactic, someone threatened to burn down a person’s house if that person gave evidence, that might be damage to property, but that might well be enough to stop a witness coming forward and be willing to give evidence, just as much as the threat of physical violence might be. Such matters are not for me, as a Minister, to decide on, but very much for the judge in the case to bear in mind when the prosecution makes an application to the court to protect a witness by the use of anonymity. It is something that a judge in a particular case with the circumstances that he is looking at will make a judgment about.
It might be helpful to the Committee if I gave some statistics about what has happened since that legislation came into force, because they might be illuminating. The Crown Prosecution Service told me that 135 anonymity applications had been made to the courts up to the end of December following the passage of the legislation, of which 129 were granted and six refused. Of the applications granted, 43 were civilians; 35 were undercover officers; 49 were test purchase officers; and two were other police officers. All six applications that were refused were for civilian witnesses and, of those cases, three were in the magistrates court, one was in the youth court and the rest were in the higher court.