| Criminal Justice Bill
|
|
Hilary Benn: It may help the hon. Gentleman if I explain that if the clause is passed, the guidance will make it clear that the money and articles of significant value should continue to be recorded. Mr. Malins: I am grateful to the Minister, but once again this is a bolt from the blue. I know of no guidance: is it in PACE, or another addition to PACE, another code or what? The Minister referred to items of ''significant value'', but what is that? What is the value of my Omega watch, which my dear father gave me? I took it in for a service the other day, expecting it to be worth about £400 in today's money, but was told that it was worth about £20. My father is still alive and well, and I went and told him. The Minister says that, in accordance with the guidance, items of significant value will have to be recorded, but that is no answer, as my hon. Friends would agree. Column Number: 107 I turn to the second reason that it is vital that money is kept. The hon. Member for Wellingborough is a barrister of distinction, who has appeared for defendants in court. Undoubtedly he, like others at the Bar and in the legal profession, has appeared on an overnight case. Let us imagine that a defendant is arrested at 9 o'clock at night for being drunk and disorderly. The hon. Gentleman will probably not have taken a small case like that except in the very early days of his career, which subsequently blossomed, but I have to take such cases from the judicial end, at Bow Street, Camberwell Green or Greenwich. It is 10 o'clock in the morning and the defendant enters. The documents are with the jailer. The charge is drunk and disorderly. When asked what he pleads, he replies, ''guilty''. He is told to stand up. When the jailer is asked how much money the defendant had on him, he replies, ''He had £17.50 on him, your honour.'' The defendant is fined £15, payable forthwith, and told to go away. End of story. That is a very helpful tool for the judiciary in overnight cases—which occur all around London. In the need to get a fine paid, being able to know how much money is in the defendant's pocket is very useful. Just imagine the chief district judge at Bow Street asking how much money a defendant has on him and being told, ''I can't tell you, your honour.'' When the judge asks, ''Why not?'', the jailer replies, ''Because under this clause I do not have to keep a record of it, your honour. Guidance was sent in a letter asking me to do that, but I did not choose to observe it.'' The courts would not like that at all. I provide that illustration to make the point that recording money, and having the requirement to do so in the statute, is an important factor for the courts. The necessity to enshrine the requirement in statute has been questioned. The Minister might say that it is bureaucracy, and that it is causing the police a lot of problems—causing them to waste much time that would be better spend investigating serious crime. We know that serious crime is the great scourge of this country, and we are told that removing this obligation on the police will free them up to do the work that they are meant to be doing. Any party, such as mine, that queries that suggestion might be categorised as being anti-law and order. Mr. Allen: Before the hon. Gentleman continues, he should be aware that we have the negatives of his last election campaign, picturing him in front of Conservative posters that said, ''We must relieve the police of onerous bureaucracy so they can get out there on the streets and do their job''. I just put that on the record before he makes any incriminating statements. Mr. Malins: I do not have to incriminate myself. I am not under caution, so nothing that I say—you will correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Illsley—can subsequently be used against me. [Hon. Members: ''But it will.''] As for the last election, I have no idea where I was photographed, or under what posters. Column Number: 108 That has begun to worry me somewhat, but I shall ponder that later.The hon. Gentleman takes a robust view on law and order and frequently produces very cogent arguments, but the matter under discussion is by no means the worst of the bureaucratic burdens on the police, in terms of list keeping. According to many police to whom I have spoken, the real burden falls when they search a property. That burden is immense and serious. How will the Minister change that? Under today's rules, when the police seize property from someone's house, there is no computerised way of keeping a record of it. They have to write out, longhand, in an exhibit book, an entire note of everything seized, but that is not the end of matter. The police officer must then transfer everything from the book to a seized property form. He or she writes everything down once in longhand, disappears to get a seized property form and then laboriously transfers every single item on to it in writing. One might think that that would be the end of the matter, but ''Oh, no it isn't!'' There is more to come—there is a third problem, and I ask the Minister to explain how he will solve it. The problem is that the entire lot has to be loaded manually into a computer. That makes three steps. The Minister has clearly spoken to police officers, and he would not have produced such a clause had he not known of the many problems that they face as regards form filling. If we asked police officers what their worst problem with form filling was, 99 out of 100 would say, ''This frightful problem with how we have to record house searches. If you just got rid of that, life would be much easier.'' The Minister may say that the purpose of the clause is to remove bureaucracy, to make police officers' lives easier and to free them up to fight crime more readily, but I would suggest that he was wrong on two counts. First, the police do not agree, particularly where the service has been computerised. Secondly, a case could be made in relation to property seized from a house. The explanation provided by his advisers as to how the Bill would overcome such problems suggests that more police time could be freed up in that regard than officers could begin to imagine. I tabled the amendments to make the following points to the Minister. First, recording amounts of money is not a burden. Secondly, it has worked well so far. Thirdly, it is in the interests of the defendant. Fourthly, it is very much in the interests of the police to record sums so that there are no allegations of impropriety. Fifthly, it is in the interests of the courts. Those are compelling arguments for not changing the law or for changing it only minimally. As regards the improprieties involved, my words are backed by the Metropolitan police, and the arguments are compelling. I conclude with a question. What evidence is there to suggest that we must change existing practice? Mr. Allen: I look forward to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Woking attacking the other problems of bureaucracy that he identified, and I am sure that he will get a sympathetic hearing from the Column Number: 109 Minister. Again, however, we are talking about a balance between ensuring that the police can do their job and having the necessary safeguards to deal with the one or two police officers, out of a police force of many thousands, who might, for some reason, abuse their position.I simply ask my hon. Friend the Minister to put on the record the fact that the provisions will help police officers to do their jobs. We want reasonable safeguards, which I am sure he will tell us about. That is the only reason why I tabled amendment No. 74. It would ensure that a transparent container was put in a secure place and sealed so that everyone was content that security had been properly handled. Nothing more needs to be said, and I hope that he can give those assurances. Mr. Heath: We had an illuminating passage on the sentencing policy of the of Bow Street magistrates court. The message is clearly that if people intend to be drunk and disorderly in that area, they should not carry ready cash with them, so that they get a lighter sentence. Mr. Malins: No, the fine is £25 or one day's imprisonment in lieu, to be served immediately. Mr. Heath: In that case, we must moderate our behaviour accordingly. There is a serious point, however, which has been partly made by the hon. Gentleman. I do not entirely buy the amendments, which are unnecessarily opaque and may not achieve his objective. I see merit in amendment No. 18 and in the point that was made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North.
11.15 amI do not have enormous concern about the arrested person and their property in such circumstances. Normal safeguards are sufficient, although it is always as well to ensure that there is no scope for impropriety on the part of the police. My principal concern, which goes back to my experience in a police authority over several years, is the effect on the police officer involved and the risk that he runs of being accused of impropriety. I have seen far too many disciplinary cases brought by accused people against police officers on the basis of complaints that are trivial, unnecessary, inappropriate or malicious. Allegations about police officers' behaviour have to be investigated, even if they are eventually not substantiated. Not to have a proper record of property that is on the arrested person at the time when they are taken into custody is to invite a complaint against the police on those grounds. I wholeheartedly agree with the wish to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy for the police, but the bureaucracy that is involved in investigating a complaint is massively more than that which is involved in making a record of the property that is in the possession of the custody sergeant. It is a complete reversal of logic to say that the measure is a good way of reducing bureaucracy. It will lead to more litigation and the undertaking of more disciplinary complaints procedures. Column Number: 110 On some occasions, property has evidential value. In such cases, it would be too easy for the defendant simply to say, ''No, that article was never in my possession and you cannot prove that it was, even if the police are using it as evidence.'' That is cause for serious concern. We must consider better and less bureaucratic ways of recording property. Perhaps it would be appropriate to ensure that all property is cached in an appropriate receptacle that is sealed at the time. Perhaps video recording could be used to produce a ''Generation Game''-style computer line-up that itemises at the time each article in the presence of the arrested person. As the hon. Member for Nottingham, North said, there may be other ways of using computers to ensure that records are kept. However it is done, records must be kept, especially of cash, but of any article that is taken by the officer.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2002 | Prepared 19 December 2002 |
