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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

The Minister talks in reasonable terms, and I am sure that she fully appreciates the nature of what she is doing. She is asking the High Court to make an order if it is satisfied that a person has been involved in serious crime—there must be a finding of involvement. If that is the case, the order may contain the prohibitions, restrictions or requirements such as those that we have previously discussed in Committee. The clause does not require any intention, knowledge or anything else; therefore, not only does it remove altogether what used to be called mens rea, a guilty mind, from the concept of involvement in serious crime but it imposes on the defendant to an application the burden of proving that what he has done is reasonable. So there is a reverse burden of proof and no test of mental state, yet—I know that the noble Baroness does not like this point, because we have had this conflict previously—a person can be put under house arrest under the terms of an order made under this clause. Without knowledge, intention or any mental state at all, and subject to you yourself proving that what you have done is reasonable, you can be targeted by a High Court as a person involved in serious crime. The whole clause is ludicrous.