My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond for her support and for so clearly and powerfully explaining her Amendment 110A. Arresting somebody for breaching
pre-charge bail where the only thing the police can do if somebody has breached the conditions is simply to re-bail them under the same conditions undermines the whole purpose of police bail—there is no sanction at all. The Minister said, “Well, the person has not been convicted of an offence and they could end up being convicted of breaching the bail but not of the original offence.” I may have been dreaming, but I seem to remember being at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, albeit the stipendiary magistrate concerned was known colloquially as “Shotgun Maclean”, and his saying to an arresting officer that, unfortunately, in a not-guilty offensive weapon trial, the officer had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of possessing an offensive weapon, but for breaching court bail—in that when they first appeared in court the person was released on court bail to reappear for the not guilty hearing—he would go to prison for three months.
There is the whole argument about this being disproportionate for somebody who is not convicted of a criminal offence if they were convicted of breaching bail, but it happens already when people who are innocent breach court bail. This seems to completely undermine the noble Lord’s argument. The point of Kay’s law is to stop dangerous people being released under investigation with no conditions attached. Without a sanction for breaching the conditions that are imposed, the conditions have no weight.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. Regarding the sort of cases he referred to, I would expect—particularly if analysis of computers was involved, for example—that these would not be standard cases and that the Crown Prosecution Service would designate them as such, so the six-month or nine-month limit would not apply. I am not sure that the cases he referred to were relevant to the examples I gave.
I accept that the Government have consulted on this, but I would go back to the Law Society, which is on the other side of the argument—including as it does defence solicitors—and feels that nine months in a standard, straightforward case not involving such things as computer analysis would be a long enough extension for a senior officer. However, we will reflect on what the Minister has said and, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.