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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support everything that my noble friend has said. I take this first opportunity to defend my family name, which the noble Lord, Lord Henley, referred to in the previous debate. I suspect that he was thinking of the case of Stephen William George Collins, reported in 1972, when a young man, who had stripped naked, was at a bedroom window and was beckoned in by a young lady who believed him to be her boyfriend. Over what happened then I draw a veil. I note from the judgment of the much lamented Lord Edmund-Davies—this because the noble Lord, Lord Henley, referred to socks—that he said about the young man that, having seen the girl in bed, "““he descended the ladder and stripped off all his clothes, with the exception of his socks, because apparently he took the view that if the girl’s mother entered the bedroom it would be easier to effect a rapid escape if he had his socks on than if he was in his bare feet””." The judgment went on: "““That is a matter about which we are not called on to express any view, and would in any event find ourselves unable to express one””." Clearly the memory of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, of his legal training is very good, but, like me, he cannot remember the name of any case.