Written evidence to be reported to the House

Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:30 pm on 16 October 2007.

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Adele Kirkwood: In fairness, when the initial consultation came out on this issue, we did some work with our Scottish colleagues, who have this power, and they felt that it was appropriate and that it worked well on the occasions that they used it. One of the responses that we gave to the initial consultation was about having a magistrates court make that decision, because it would include a number of key stakeholders. With nuisance neighbours, for example, a number of stakeholders would have a lot of discussions and try to solve the issue in other ways. This would be a last resort. That is why we felt that it was important to have a magistrate’s involvement, so that all those issues could at least be considered by the court as well.