Police and Justice Bill

I shall speak to new clauses 2, 3, 9 and 10 and amendment No. 42, on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself. I welcome the Minister to his new post. We are not discussing teeth, and I am sure that he and I are both pleased about that, but the subject that we are discussing is very grim, and it is a bit hard for him to be covering it on his first day at the Dispatch Box. The new clauses strengthen the law against sex offenders, especially against those who offend against children. As the Minister will know from his background research, I have spent some time with the Metropolitan police paedophile unit and the issue has developed into something of a minor campaign for me. There has been enormous co-operation between various Home Office Ministers, civil servants, Conservative Front Benchers and me. Perhaps the best example is the Committee stage of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which saw some very close discussion and changes. It was an unusual Committee stage because of the co-operation. In effect, the new clauses derive from those discussions. At that stage, the then Minister, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), asked that the ideas that I am putting forward today be stored for further consideration. Over recent weeks, my small team of Alisdair Gillespie, who is an academic barrister and a specialist in this area, Detective Chief Inspector Matt Sarti and I—we are all on the unit that is working on this area in the Home Office, although I must admit that their attendance is considerably better than mine—had a number of meetings with the Minister’s predecessor to discuss the way forward on the new clauses. Amendment No. 42 simply broadens the long title to enable the new clauses to be covered. The meat of the clauses starts with new clause 2 on encryption. It is well known that paedophiles collect child abuse pornographic photographic images, some of which are real and some of which are pseudo. There has been a huge increase in such activity with the arrival of the internet, and the activity is expanding massively at the moment. Paedophiles use the images to stimulate themselves and others. The images are sold between individuals, frequently not for financial gain, but for new abuse images. One must remember that every single abuse photograph represents at least one child being abused on one occasion. The thought of new images being constantly produced to fulfil that demand is quite horrific. Many of the images are in the form of videos or DVDs or are on computers. Increasingly, they are kept on remote storage. Some of the computers that the police collect have no hard drives at all. They are driven or initiated by a disk and the information is stored remotely. Increasingly, the information is hidden by encryption. We used to have simple encryption, but we have moved to 128 bit and, even more, to 256 bit encryption. The software is freely available on the internet and relatively easy to use. Essentially, it is unbreakable. The other thing that particularly alarms me is that Vista, which is the replacement for Windows OS, is due out generally next year. Once that system is on board the security is such that, when the computer is turned off, it automatically encrypts all the information on it so that when the police collect the computer and turn it on, they cannot break through the encryption. Some information can be destroyed, preventing access by the police. The police clearly need access for obvious reasons. They need to seek evidence against individuals and, frequently—because offenders sometimes work in packs or groups—against others. In a way, perhaps it is even more important that the police can identify the children in the photographs and movies. Once those children have been located, it is possible to seek care and counselling for them to try to bring them back into a normal life. There is some evidence that abused children go on to become abusers themselves. The new clause deals with encrypted data found on computers and storage in cases where the police believe that the encrypted data contains abusive images of children. It does not create any new offence or scheme, but rather amends the sentencing regime under section 53 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which is commonly known as RIPA. Part III requires a person to comply with a notice issued by the police to hand over the encryption key for protected data. The penalty for a breach is two years, but that is ludicrous for a paedophile because the alternative penalty, if the information was turned over, would often be five years or more and, frequently, having to go on the sex offenders list. Accordingly, it is unlikely that an offender who has indecent and abusive photographs of children on his computer would comply with the notice. To achieve compliance, we need to step up the penalty, so I suggest that such offenders should be liable for up to 10 years’ imprisonment, which is the penalty for contravening section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978—there is thinking and a link behind the idea. The new clause would simply raise the sentence if a court was satisfied that it was more than likely that the majority of the encrypted data consisted of indecent photographs of children. I suggest that the civil burden is permissible because the offence would be not possessing the photographs of children, which would be punished separately, but the failure to hand over the key. The higher sentence would apply only when one of two thresholds was passed: first, that the computer had non-encrypted indecent photos of children or a child on it, as an indication; or, secondly, that the person had been previously convicted of an offence contrary to section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 or section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. I will move on to new clause 3. Sections 48 to 50 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which make provision for the offences of recruiting or controlling a child involved in pornography or prostitution, are not, for some reason, prescribed for the purposes of notification requirements under part 2 of the Act. I am afraid that my Front-Bench colleagues and I missed that at the time at which the legislation was passed. Those sections are not being used by the police and prosecutors because they do not have the notification that applies to most of, if not all, the other provisions relating to the abuse of children. I hope that the Minister will agree that there is no valid reason why people convicted of such an offence should not be required to notify the police of their details, because they are directly involved in the abuse and exploitation of children and need monitoring and risk assessment. New clauses 9 and 10 are two different approaches to the same problem: the risk assessment of offenders on the sex offenders list. It is coincidental that we are debating the matter today because it relates to two recent high-profile cases: today there was a report on the rapist and murderer of Naomi Bryant, and, three or so weeks ago, a paedophile was reported as having persistently raped a nine-year-old girl over a period of three years. Both people were on the sex offenders list, and it is possible that a change along the lines that I am suggesting could have helped in those cases. The police in this country are required to risk-assess offenders. The House will be aware that paedophiles are especially prone to reoffend. If I may quote a well-known barrister steeped in the practice of defending paedophiles—I cannot think of a more obnoxious task—they are the ““most devious, lying individuals”” she has ever had to deal with. Most western countries have sex offenders lists and virtually all require risk assessment. Most give the police the opportunity to do that, but, unfortunately, those undertaking such risk assessments in this country have limited rights of access. Here, to date, most offenders co-operate, but I am fairly sure that that is mainly because they are ignorant of the fact that they can shut the door in the face of the police or their agents who come to check a residency for the purposes of a risk assessment. Unfortunately, it is increasingly becoming apparent that more and more such individuals are realising that there is a flaw in legislation. Many give false or temporary addresses. They move to caravans or move around in caravans. I know of a group of them who live in canal boats in London. Some live with relatives, or give relatives’ addresses. It is quite hideously worrying for the police that one individual, whom I will not name, owns a block of flats, and, as far as he is concerned, the front door of the block of flats is his front door. The police thus cannot get into the block, although they are aware that single-parent mothers and their children live in flats in that block—one’s imagination can run with that. We discussed all these matters with the Minister’s predecessor. I felt that there was general agreement between my team and the Minister that change was needed, but it was the approach that we were discussing. New clause 9 follows the approach that I believe the Minister and his advisers wish to follow. I understand that it is the approach that has been taken in Scotland. Ministers prefer that both countries should have comparable legislation, unless we can arrive at better legislation. In spite of my Scottish ancestry, it might be appropriate that we have better legislation here in England and that the Scots copy us rather than the other way round. New clause 9 enables the police to obtain a warrant to ensure confirmation and risk assessment. I personally feel that new clause 10 is a better approach. It is a lateral-thinking approach in that it requires the offender to co-operate, both within a reasonable excess request and to co-operate with any reasonable risk assessment requests. The clause goes further than new clause 9 but is gentler. New clause 9 requires admission and new clause 10 co-operation. I think that we will find that most of our beleagured police forces would prefer new clause 10 because it goes that step further. I suspect that some people may believe that the human rights of the offenders that we are discussing are being breached. I point to the word ““reasonable””, which appears in both of the new clauses. Secondly, it would be rather nice if we considered the human rights of the children who could be abused. Child sex offenders frequently go on to abuse. They abuse the human rights of individuals. Some offenders may rape, something which I have mentioned already. There is sometimes murder, as has been reported in today’s media. I hope that the Minister will see that there is an opportunity to act now. It is an opportunity to move: before even Microsoft is ready for us, we are ready for it. Delay would leave a breathing space for some horrible offenders who have a record of often horrendous abuse towards innocent members of our society, especially children. There is a figure that the police gave me some years ago; they conservatively estimate that there are 230,000 active paedophiles, many of whom are women, in this country. That is a sufficient number for one in every street.