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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

To return to the distinction that emerged in the discussion between the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and the Minister, are there not two quite different situations here? One is the situation where a serious crime prevention order is sought following a conviction, which will have been based on the criminal standard of proof, as that is all that is needed. That seems relatively straightforward and does not seem to raise any problems under Article 6 of the European convention. But you are in a different situation where there is a third party who has not been convicted of an offence and may not have committed one at all. In those circumstances, one needs to be a lot more careful about how the application for an order is handled. Unfortunately, it seems that the Bill does not recognise sufficiently the difference between those two situations.