Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, for moving this amendment. I have been provided with speaking notes to address some of the points that he has raised but, before I get to them, it occurs to me that perhaps he is raising two different issues here. I speak as someone who worked at the BBC for nine years. Following the noble Lord’s praise for Sky, I do not know whether this will mean that I attract criticism from him, but, as I say, I think that there are two separate matters here. One is about documentaries or docusoaps, in which broadcasters follow police services and, in the course of filming or making the programmes, they capture footage on film of people doing things that are against the law. In those circumstances, the broadcasters tend to pixelate the images when they are played out. The broadcasters of that kind of imagery clearly have to comply with Ofcom’s broadcasting code and ensure that they do not broadcast images that might jeopardise any legal process that the police service might want to pursue in apprehending the person whom they have filmed. There is a separate issue that the noble Lord spoke more to in moving the amendment. It covers situations where news organisations, including the BBC, Sky, ITV and many others, broadcast CCTV footage that has been released to them by the police, usually in order for them to report on criminal activity and to broadcast the fact of that activity to the general public. In responding to the noble Lord, I will focus my comments on the second category of images rather than the first. I start by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lord that CCTV systems and images are an important investigative tool for the police. There is little point in investing in such systems if the police and others cannot make full use of the images when investigating offences captured on CCTV systems and prosecuting offenders. Where a suspect has yet to be identified and there is reason to believe that the release of CCTV footage will aid the police investigation of a crime and secure justice for the victim, our general approach is that we support images being made available to the public. There will be some cases where this may not be appropriate. However, the BBC programme ““Crimewatch”” is a great example of where CCTV footage of crimes has been broadcast and, as a result, the public have been able to provide vital information to the police. We must be alive to the fact that at an early stage of an investigation, before anyone has been arrested for an alleged offence, any CCTV images would at best identify only one or more alleged offenders or wholly innocent persons. We need to be sensitive to such considerations, particularly where the persons visible on any CCTV footage appear to be under 18 and are therefore afforded particular protection within the criminal justice system. The position is different once a person has been arrested for an offence. In those circumstances, the Contempt of Court Act 1981 is engaged. This means that from the time of their arrest, a suspect is afforded a degree of protection in order to ensure that as the accused they have a fair trial. All these considerations argue for a degree of constraint on the media in publishing personal details of suspects at the pre-charge stage. This is consistent with guidance issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers that sets out the limited circumstances in which police officers might divulge to the media the personal details of those suspected of, but not yet charged with, an offence. The ACPO guidance sets out the principles in this area, including the legal tests of necessity and proportionality, to help police forces make decisions about the release of images of suspects and defendants to the media. I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue. It is clearly relevant to the provisions of the Bill, given that one of our objectives is to promote the effective use of CCTV systems. As I said, it must be right that the police should be able to exploit CCTV images as part of their investigation of an offence. If the publication of such images has a role to play in helping identify suspects, the police should not be inhibited from placing them in the public domain. In doing so, they must have proper regard to their duties under data protection legislation and to the need to protect the rights of the accused, and they must have particular regard to the position of children. I hope that, having sparked the debate and listened to my responses, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.