Police and Justice Bill

I begin by associating myself wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) and the hon. Members for Castle Point (Bob Spink) and for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). The hon. Member for Mole Valley welcomed the approach adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) when he was responsible for these matters, which I intend to continue in future. The motivation behind all the new clauses is shared on both sides of the House. I will assist my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North in obtaining an answer to her questions. I led for the Department of Health on the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill, so I am familiar with some of the issues that she has highlighted. New clause 1 seeks to ensure that an offender who is involved in making and distributing indecent photographs of children or who commits a sexual offence—for example, rape, sexual assault or sexual grooming—is not given a caution, with or without conditions, unless it is clear that that person is unlikely to commit further offences of that nature again. Conditional cautioning may not be considered for any of those offences, bar one, because they are all either-way or indictable-only offences and are therefore not included in the list of offences in the Director of Public Prosecutions guidance on conditional cautioning issued in December 2004. Decisions about cautions cannot be taken by the police alone. The DPP’s guidance on charging issued in January 2005 makes it clear that police must refer all indictable-only offences to a prosecutor, which is a point that the hon. Member for Castle Point made forcefully. It is important that police officers have recourse to the specialisms that prosecutors can bring, and police cannot administer a simple caution in those cases at their own discretion. The decision on the right course of action is framed by the simple guidance set out in the code for Crown prosecutors—the more serious the offence, the more likely it is that prosecution will be needed in the public interest. Indeed, one of the specific factors in favour of prosecution is listed in the code at paragraph 5.9:"““there are grounds for believing that the offence is likely to be continued or repeated, for example, by a history of recurring conduct””." A review of cases in this area has shown that there are truly exceptional circumstances, as the hon. Member for Castle Point acknowledged, in which prosecutors should be allowed to consider caution. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) alluded to that sentiment and provided some examples. One further example could involve an allegation of rape by one child against another, where a final warning is accompanied by packages of treatment in a programme of interventions designed by youth offending teams or social services to address the offender’s inappropriate sexual behaviour. In such truly exceptional circumstances, the offence may be suitable for disposal by a caution, but only providing that all the criteria are met. The hon. Member for Castle Point referred to some of the consequences of a caution. It is true that, in the absence of a charge, a caution is better than dealing with the case by no further action, or better than detecting but not proceeding. A caution has the benefit of ensuring that the offence at least appears on the person’s criminal record and can be cited in future proceedings. It is also significant that the offender will become subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for two years from the date of the caution or for one year in the case of a youth offender. The hon. Member for Castle Point is right to say that it is important to exercise great care in taking the decision whether to caution those who admit offences of this nature, and that a trial is right in almost all such cases. The risk of re-offending is, of course, one of the key factors to take into account in the decision-making process. The existing guidance on cautioning and charging, and the principles set out in the code for Crown prosecutors, provide the necessary safeguards. For those reasons, we believe that it is desirable that the opportunity to use a simple caution for offences of this nature should continue to exist for extraordinary cases, but with reference to the important principle: the more serious the crime, the more important it is to prosecute. I think that the House is united in its view about the gravity of these offences.