Former MP for Lewisham West
The Minister will know that since 1980, following pressure from Labour Members, the number of major tranquillisers prescribed in every prison in Britain has appeared at the end of the annual prison report. Would it not be comparatively simple to classify the heavy tranquillisers by type of drug? Surely it would not cost much to obtain the information that my hon. Friend the Member for South...
I agree with my hon. Friend. We have all been verballed over the telephone late at night by Press Association reporters. I shall not mention any by name and I shall not even allude to Mr. Christopher Moncrieff. We have all experienced getting out of bed, half asleep and bleary eyed, and answering "Yes" to a question. The next morning, when one picks up The Daily Telegraph, The Times, the...
With regard to Members of Parliament, I am sure that one could properly describe it as "a fair cop", but for youngsters who find great difficulty in managing in such circumstances—as, for example, in the Confait case—it pollutes the face of justice and is not the way ahead. Many policemen have been against tape recording because they know that if the jury did not have a typewritten sheet...
Does the hon. Gentleman not think that one has to be a bit cautious about this? Does he remember that in the New Cross inquest, although there was an independent person present during much of the questioning of the young people and the taking of statements from them, during some of the questioning there was not? There was a good deal of evidence there that, if there is a period during which...
It is nice to have a debate in which everyone is so certain that everything will come right in the end. I shall inject a note of realism and a certain note of scepticism. The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said that the new clause would do an enormous amount to raise the morale of the police. I would believe that if the police had not been opposing this reform tooth and...
For 12 years I have heard lawyers saying that they favoured tape recording. In Committee the Minister constantly said something like this, "I am a passionate tape recorder." I take him at his word. When one takes the results of the Scottish experiment into account and considers the tiny scale of the English experiment, I think we are as far away from a national system of tape recording as...
I am sure that that and various other pieces of dialogue occur, but I am simplifying the matter, otherwise I should detain the House for much longer. What I have described is the way in which statements come before the courts. Most jurors, on seeing that typed piece of paper, actually think that the individual in question said those words.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the most dramatic element in what I believe was a wholly authentic leak in the New Statesman was the way in which the length of the interview was cut down when tape recording was introduced? Does he agree that it cannot be a bad thing if, instead of spending many hours trying to get confessions out of people, the police cut down interview time substantially?
