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Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Bill

My hon. and learned Friend makes a perfectly sound point and a good case. However, the language of subsection (3) goes further:"““in order to prevent real harm to the public interest””." Then we come to the identity of particular people or otherwise. I am merely saying that the language of the subsection goes very wide. We should be slow to give immunities of that kind. It is for the Crown to prove its case, so let it do so. The burden rests on the Solicitor-General to satisfy the criterion that there is a good cause. Amendment No. 6 would amend condition B to reinforce the principle that the trial must be fair. The Government's drafting is slightly flaccid in that it merely requires the court to be satisfied that the order is"““consistent with…a fair trial””." I want to elevate the bar so that the court must be satisfied that the defendant is not deprived of a fair trial. This is modelled on the New Zealand legislation and goes higher than the Government's drafting in protecting the defendant, which is what I want to do. Amendment No. 7 asserts that the witness's refusal to testify could be reasonable. I can imagine a lot of circumstances where a witness does not want to testify: because, as the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) suggested, things have been put into their mind by police officers; because they do not want to be cross-examined by difficult counsel such as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Cox); or because the situation is altogether difficult. We should legislate so that, first, the refusal to testify is evidence-based; and, secondly, it is reasonable when tested by the judge or by the special advocate. That is what I want to be done and what the amendment is designed to achieve. Amendment No. 8 would insert a new condition, namely condition D. It would create another overarching condition—in effect, that there is no reason to doubt the credibility of the witness. The Bill as drafted provides that issues of credibility are relevant considerations in the making of the order, but that such an issue is not an overarching condition, as are conditions A, B and C. The issue of credibility should be an overarching condition, and that is the intention of condition D as contained in the amendment. I commend the amendments to the Committee.