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Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill

moved Amendment No. 13: 13: Clause 11, page 6, line 10, leave out ““the defendant did not receive a fair trial”” and insert ““there is a real probability that the defendant may not have received a fair trial”” The noble Viscount said: This amendment relates solely to appeals against convictions that have already taken place under the past system and where witnesses were given anonymity. Clause 11(2)(b) provides that the conviction is to be treated as unsafe if the court considers that the defendant did not receive a fair trial. The whole difficulty about anonymity is that the defendant will not know whether he received a fair trial because he does not know whether, if he had known the witness’s identity, there were a whole lot of things he could have put to the witness that would have proved them likely to be a liar, malicious and so on. The defendant will never be able to demonstrate that he did not receive a fair trial, but he may well be able to raise a sufficient case to indicate that there is a real probability that he may not have received a fair trial. That is the amendment that I propose. This is not a matter where it is pointful for the Minister to say, ““We’ll deal with this when the whole thing comes back in 12 months’ time””, because these appeals, by definition, are going to be heard in the immediate future because they are appeals against cases that have already happened. It will be little consolation to the appellants in those cases to find that in 12 months’ time, after their appeals have been dismissed, the Government recognise the validity of the point I am making and put forward a lesser test, but a test that will not be applied to almost all the cases covered by this provision. I beg to move.