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Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill

I am most grateful to noble Lords for their contribution to this, our final debate in Committee. It has been interesting because we spent a great deal of time during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill discussing the worthiness of the magistrates’ courts. It has been interesting to listen to noble Lords’ comments on specific issues relating to witness anonymity and the role of the magistrates’ courts. Before coming to the argument, I shall answer the specific questions that were raised. While I accept that the Government need to give careful consideration to the points raised—I will suggest a way in which they intend to do so during the next few months—I point out that the status quo is that magistrates’ courts are and have been covered by witness anonymity procedures. Therefore, the Government are retaining the status quo, albeit with the safeguards that are being built into the legislation. In that sense, the Bill provides strengthened safeguards in relation to magistrates’ courts, as it does to other courts. I am wary of citing figures. We have the results of a snapshot survey by the CPS. The number of cases of which we are aware is one case in the magistrates’ courts and one case in the youth court. It is clear that that is a snapshot survey, but it suggests that—to use the terminology of the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, when speaking to a previous amendment—this measure appears to be used in exceptional circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, asked whether magistrates’ courts have the facilities for the measures that need to be taken in relation to witness anonymity. My advice is that neither the magistrates’ court nor the Crown Court automatically has specific technical equipment for witness anonymity cases, which are dealt with on an ad hoc basis. There is no reason in principle, therefore, why any Crown Court should have facilities that the magistrates’ court does not. There is nothing to prevent proceedings from being transferred to a local Crown Court building if the layout and facilities are more appropriate there, but, of course, the case would still be heard by the magistrates. I am reliably informed that special considerations in any case need to be given in Crown Court facilities when witness anonymity is agreed to, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, with his vast experience, will know. On magistrates’ courts having no power to appoint special counsel, I must again be cautious about the information that I have. We are not aware of an example of this happening in practice, but there is no reason in principle why the magistrates’ court cannot draw on the assistance of special counsel in the same way as the Crown Court can. My understanding is that the court would write to the Attorney-General asking for an appointment to be made, as the Crown Court does, if the court felt that to be appropriate. The amendment would prevent witness anonymity orders from being made in magistrates’ courts. Magistrates’ courts include the youth court. Real concern would be felt about the impact of the amendment on youth courts. Although some serious offences committed by young offenders are dealt with by the Crown Court, it would not be appropriate as a matter of policy to require defendants under 18 to be tried in the Crown Court to obtain a witness anonymity order. I refer noble Lords back to our debates during the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill on young people appearing in the Crown Court. We think that the current position should continue under this emergency Bill because there may be offences, including cases involving the test purchase of drugs by undercover police officers, that could be tried quite appropriately in the magistrates’ court using anonymous evidence. Indeed, you could argue that the defendant might be disadvantaged if such cases had to be sent to the Crown Court—for example, if the case took longer to come to court. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked whether I was aware of any difficulty with the operation of courts in New Zealand and the fact that there is no provision for the equivalent of magistrates’ courts in that country to use witness anonymity. I am not aware of any such information. Clearly, we have had little time to consider these matters, but we have been very much helped by the framework of the New Zealand legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said earlier, however close our ties are to New Zealand, the circumstances in our two countries can be different. But clearly we will have a little time now to do some more exploration of the experience in that country.