Witness Anonymity

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Innovation, Universities and Skills – in the House of Commons at 12:28 pm on 26 June 2008.

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Photo of Alan Beith Alan Beith Chair, Justice Committee, Chair, Justice Committee 12:28, 26 June 2008

Clearly society cannot allow people to escape the rule of law by virtue of their known ability to intimidate witnesses or terrorise whole communities. I welcome the Lord Chancellor's careful and proportionate attempt to address the problem. But what course of action would be open to the defence if they had good reason to believe that a witness given anonymity might be someone whose credibility the jury would seriously doubt were the full facts about them to be known?