My Lords, while I am not going to get carried away and divide the House on this issue, I will press it just once more. In my view, Clauses 1(1) and (2) in fact describe two crimes. Clause (1)(a) says,
“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey”,
which is great,
“and … the laser beam dazzles or distracts”.
That is a straightforward crime because I have stopped before the word “or”, so it is not a problem. Then there is a second offence, where,
“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey, and … the laser beam … is likely to dazzle or distract … a person with control of the vehicle”.
In my view, it will be incredibly difficult to prove this second crime of being likely to dazzle or distract. That is why I would like paragraph (b) deleted so that it would simply be a matter of proving that a person had shone or directed a laser beam towards a vehicle that was on a journey. That is my reason for pressing the amendment again.