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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, enjoined me not to use examples, and I am about to do so only to explain why we think the current drafting is appropriate. We have included the power for the court to order forfeiture because without it, we think we might get some pretty perverse results. Let me give theexample of multiple telephones being used in drug transportation or trafficking cases. One of the provisions that the court makes is that the individual involved should have possession of only one mobile to prevent the widespread use of clean and dirty mobiles for personal and criminal business respectively. After the person’s arrest for breach of the order of having more than one mobile and the subsequent disposal of the offence, the police would have to return the other mobiles which the subject had been using to breach the order, as the breach would be having in his possession other mobiles. Not only would the vast majority of people think that this was a rather unusual outcome, it would also mean that the subject of the order was immediately in breach of it again because the police were not able to remove from him the mobiles or the article that caused the breach. Amendment No. 82 would change the test in Clause 26(1) from a subjective test which the court considers to an objective test where the court has ““reasonable grounds for believing””. We believe that the current drafting of the test is more appropriate. The matter is decided by a judge who can be expected to make a reasonable decision based on the evidence and the arguments, without the need to set this out expressly. For that reason, we think that, practically speaking, the clause works as it should. We do not think that this will cause a difficulty for the court. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.