Police and Justice Bill

I support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink). I understand that conditional cautions were being handed out as a means of discouraging people who might have committed one offence from committing further offences. It was a form of warning. As my hon. Friend said, it was a way of pulling people up short. It is clear that the system is being flagrantly abused. It seems to have been transmogrified into a means of keeping people out of the courts and ultimately out of prison, which I believe is a means of saving money. I find that unacceptable. Labour Members will know that only one crime in 20 is solved. I believe that that includes the 30,000 or so people who are issued with cautions every year. That means that anyone who commits a crime can be assumed to have committed at least 20 offences before being caught. We have been discussing paedophiles disseminating child pornography, and it is reasonable to assume that they will have committed many more than 20 offences when they are finally caught. It is ludicrous that we caution people who have committed such serious offences. We issue cautions for offences such as burglary or grievous bodily harm. I would much rather scrap the system of cautions when people have committed serious crime and bring them to court, punish them and give their victims justice. If we must continue with the ludicrous system of cautions, which is abused, the very least that we can do is try to ensure that those who have committed the most serious offences are not able to escape justice by accepting caution. There are not many offences that are more serious than disseminating child pornography and abusing children from some perverted and twisted personal enjoyment. It is only appropriate that we remove the right of criminals to be able to accept a caution for something as serious as the offences that they have committed.