Commons Chamber

                    The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.
                

House Of Commons

Friday 13th February 1976

The House met at Eleven o'clock

Prayers

[MR. SPEAKER in the chair]

New Writ

For Coventry, North-West, in the room of Maurice Edelman, Esquire, deceased.—[ Mr. Mellish.]

Orders Of The Day

Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

11.5 a.m.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is not an attempt to update the Sexual Offences Act, as the law on this is being reviewed by the Criminal Law Revision Committee. In case there should be doubt of the need for the Bill, I would point out that in 1974, the last year for which figures are available, there were about three cases of rape a day recorded as known to the police—a total of 1,052. While there has been an increase in the number of reported rape cases, the figures have not risen as fast as for other types of violent crime.

In 1974, 410 cases of rape were tried before Crown courts, and in 317 cases the defendants were found guilty. That leaves roughly two cases a day known to the police which did not result in a Crown court trial. I do not blame the police for this, and the reasons for it are hard to find. The only guide I have, and it is random, is from the evidence sent to me under confidential assurance by about 60 women. Let them speak.

One woman wrote:

"I did not come forward because I was 16 at the time and still at school. I did not want to get into trouble with the school and my parents."

Another woman wrote:

"I was threatened that my child, who was with me, would be hurt if I didn't do what he wanted, so as the law stands, the man could argue that I consented."

Another said:

"I thought that if I reported it and went to court, no one would want to marry me."

Another, to underline the importance of anonymity, wrote:

"I was frightened of the publicity and of not winning the case as I did not scream for help or physically struggled."

That touches on the central point of consent and belief.

Yet another woman wrote:

"I did not think the jury would believe my story because I didn't struggle, except at the beginning, because he was in a foul mood and I thought I might be strangled."

Another said, on the publicity point:

"I thought that I would seem to the other boys to be second-hand or unclean, or, worse still, to be 'fair game'."

Those are just some of the extracts from a tragic postbag and in simple words seem to me to underline the importance of putting the Heilbron recommendations into law as soon as possible.

The need to deal in a new and better way with the problems arising from rape cases is what has led to the Bill, to the debate in the last Session of Parliament and to the setting up of the Advisory Group on the Law of Rape under the distinguished chairmanship of Mrs. Justice Heilbron. I want to add my tribute to that of the Home Secretary for the care, compassion and speed with which the Group reported.

I should like also to add my warm support to this comment in paragraph 6 of the Report:

"To Mr. Jack Ashley we owe a particular debt of gratitude, for it was through his humane concern and his efforts in Parliament and elsewhere that public interest was aroused."

I think that we would all say a loud "Hear, hear," to that and to those outside the House who helped my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) in his campaign. It was my hon. Friend, more than anyone else, who helped me to make up my mind on my choice of Private Member's Bill.

I also wish to extend my thanks to those organisations which allowed me to see their written evidence to the Heilbron Group, to the National Council for Civil Liberties for its interest and assistance, and especially to those women who answered my appeal for letters, which brought in a sad postbag but one which has given me better insight into this terrible topic.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, more than anyone else, can take the credit for the setting up of the Heilbron Group after the House of Lords decision in the case of the Director of Public Prosecutions v. Morgan and Others, which gave rise to great concern but also to some misconceptions. That decision was widely interpreted as a "licence to rape" or a "rapist's charter." It was not. When that view is endorsed by bodies usually as far apart as the Criminal Bar Association and the National Council for Civil Liberties, not to mention the Heilbron Group, we should listen to what is being said.

In the Morgan case the House of Lords affirmed the view that the crime of rape consisted of having sexual intercourse with a woman with intent to do so without her consent, or recklessly failing to ensure consent. It said that if the accused genuinely believed that the woman had consented, whether or not that belief was based on reasonable grounds, he could not be found guilty of rape because the existence of such a belief did not prove what the Heilbron Group called "the guilty mind". That is a technical point, though one of great importance and one which, if the Bill is given a Second Reading, deserves to be explored in Committee.

However, the Heilbron Group reached the conclusion, which the Government support, that the decision in the Morgan case has led to misunderstandings which should be cleared up, although the Group felt that the decision in that case was correct. As Mr. J. C. Smith, a leading authority on criminal law, says in the February issue of the Criminal Law Review:

"If the report"—

That is the Heilbron Group Report—

"is implemented it will affirm everything that was decided in Morgan but will effect important reforms in the law and evidence applicable in rape trials which were in no way in issue in that case."

The Group recommended that legislation should define "rape". Paragraph 18 of the Heilbron Report says:

"There is no modern definition of the crime of rape and although it is an offence under Section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, the statute contains no attempt at a definition. The traditional common law definition, derived from a seventeenth century writer and still in use, is that rape consists of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent, by force, fear or fraud."

The Heilbron Group recommended that:

"Legislation should define 'rape' in particular to bring out the special importance of recklessness as a mental element of the crime"—

what the Group called the guilty mind"—

"and to emphasise that the absence of consent is the essence of the criminal act."

The Group also thought that legislation should include a declaratory provision in those cases where the accused's belief that a woman consents to sexual intercourse is a matter that the jury must consider.

The Group also made proposals to make it less difficult—not easy, because it can never be that—for a woman to report an alleged rape to the police and, thus, to soften the distress to the complainant. The recommendations relate in the first place to evidence and cross-examination about the complainant's private sex life. The Group found that under present practice a woman could often be subjected to hurtful and irrelevant cross-examination about her previous sexual history, on the seeming assumption that because the woman had had, for example, an abortion, or an illegitimate baby, or was even held to be promiscuous, that somehow excused the rape or, worse, suggested that rape was not possible against such a women. This current attitude does nothing to advance the course of justice, and the Heilbron Group concluded that restrictions should be placed upon such cross-examination. Its view was that this could be done only by direct regulation.

The Heilbron Group also recommended that the complainant should be anonymous. It found this necessary because the disclosure of a rape victim's name caused her great distress and also tended to discourage women from reporting alleged rape. That is borne out in the postbag to which I have referred. The Group did not recommend similar anonymity for defendants in rape cases because, as is set out in paragraph 177 of the Report:

"The only reason for giving him"—

that is, the accused—

"anonymity is the argument that he should be treated on an equal basis. We think it erroneous to suppose that the equality should be with her"—

that is, the complainant—

"—it should be with other accused persons and an acquittal will give him public vindication."

That is a telling and carefully considered argument and, on balance, I decided to go along with it, although if the Bill is given a Second Reading I hope that we can explore the matter in Committee, because there are strong and valid arguments for the opposite point of view.

Has my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) seen the assertions in today's Sun newspaper? If he has, will he comment on the anonymity aspect?

Yes, I have. The Sun shines at the trivial but always gets facts wrong when it deals with serious matters. The leading article to which my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) referred is a demonstration of that.

Rape is a controversial subject. We are often in the most private world of two people and have to understand that not all alleged rapes are the result of violent assault or the threatened use of force, such as the stranger knocking at the door or waylaying a girl on her way home from a dance.

We must tread carefully, because my postbag suggests that allegations of rape can arise from previously non-sexual relationships, where the man goes too far and persuades himself in the passion of a moment that "No" means "Yes". However, we now have a chance to remove the fear from the minds of women that for too long the attitude to rape has been based on the unspoken belief that, in the end, no woman will refuse the sexual advances of a dominant man and that "No", whatever the circumstances in which it is said, is simply a "tease" and that women never mean it.

However, perhaps put more simply, one benefit of the Bill will be to increase the respect for women and for their right—because that is what it is—to say "No" and to be understood to mean "No". The Bill aims at implementing the major proposals of the Heilbron Group while acknowledging that there is important detailed work for the Standing Committee.

One recommendation that is not included in the Bill is that there should be a minimum of at least four women on the 12-strong jury to achieve—if I may paraphrase the Heilbron Group—a better balance of the sexes. Put another way, this is perhaps an intent to build suspected bias into the jury to counter what has been held to be the general bias against women on rape juries. Together with several of my sponsors, I am cautious about this idea because it would interfere with the supreme importance, in our legal system, of the random selection of juries. Once this door has been opened I have worries about to where it may lead. My mind and the minds of my sponsors are not closed on this matter. That also applies to the Bill's other provisions. I hope that if the Bill is given a Second Reading the Committee will consider this point.

The proposal with which the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) deals is the one to have at least four women and four men on any jury of 12 persons. At the time Rose Heilbron reported it was fairly common to find few ladies at the Old Bailey and in other courts. Today, if the hon. Gentleman makes inquiries, he will find that there is almost a superfluity of ladies available at the Old Bailey and other courts, because the selection of juries has changed greatly. Will he recognise that provided there is a reasonable balance of men and women on a jury, that is all that is needed? Surely he will agree that if anonymity is to be given during a trial to the complainant, it should also be given to the accused?

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his remarks. I accept absolutely that there are now more women available for jury service. I know of a case that was heard in the last few months where, on random selection—and that must be preserved—five women were chosen to sit on a jury of 12.

The hon. and learned Gentleman raised the matter of anonymity for the accused unless convicted. As I have already said, I am persuaded at present to the view that the Heilbron Report took on this matter. However, I have acknowledged that there are strong and valid arguments in favour of this. It opens a new principle on the basis that the Heilbron Group was implying—that rape is a unique and particular crime to a woman. It is said in the Report that the comparison is not between the man and the woman at the trial but between the man accused of rape and the man accused of other serious offences. I know that my spensors want to include this provision in the Bill. It is certainly something that the Committee should discuss.

I should like to turn quickly to the Bill's main provisions. Clause 1 deals with the meaning of rape and follows the first two recommendations of the Heilbron Report. It is not intended as a complete description of the offence in such a way as to codify all the existing case law, as codification of the law on sexual offences is necessarily a lengthy process. This is being undertaken by the Criminal Law Revision Committee. However, it does provide a clearer restatement of the law.

Subsection (1) defines rape, bringing out the two points stressed by Heilbron: that is, the importance of recklessness as a mental element in the crime—what Heilbron called "the guilty mind"—and the fact that lack of consent is the crux of the criminal act. Subsection (2) consists of the declaratory provision that will apply whenever the jury at a trial for rape has to consider whether the defendant believed that the complainant was consenting to sexual intercourse at the time of the alleged offence. It emphasises that when the issue is whether a man is speaking the truth when he says that he believed the woman was consenting, the presence or absence of reasonable grounds for this belief must be considered by the jury along with any other relevant matters.

This is not a change in the law; it is a much-needed restatement of it, which I think will do a lot to remove the present misunderstandings of the judgment in the Morgan case.

The purpose of Clause 2 is to restrict the freedom of the defence to call evidence or cross-examine complainants about their sexual history—a point on which I have received many letters. The aim is to exclude this form of attack on the complainant whenever it would amount to little more than "mud slinging". The sexual history of the complainant with the defendant is not excluded, as this is likely in many cases to be relevant. With the leave of the judge, other evidence and cross-examination is allowed, provided the judge is satisfied that it is so relevant that it would be unfair to the defendant to exclude it.

I pause here to say that a tightrope has to be walked in this area: while trying to give added protection to women who are making allegations of rape, we should do nothing by this measure which would take away the rights of the defendant.

However, where the main purpose of seeking leave is to show that the complainant behaved in accordance with her sexual disposition, the test of relevance is further narrowed in subsection (3), under which there must be shown to be a striking relationship between the way the complainant is said to have behaved on the occasion of the crime and her previous sexual history. This is identical with the test that the Heilbron Group recommended and is another much-needed safeguard for women.

The test of unfairness to the defendant where the purpose of calling the evidence is not to show the complainant's disposition is not dealt with expressly in the Group's Report, but is consistent with its principles and is necessary to cope with a few cases that might arise—for example, where the accused argued that the complainant was said to be having sexual intercourse with another man at the time of the alleged rape.

Clause 3 applies the provisions of Clause 2 to committal proceedings, courts-martial and summary trials.

Clause 4 provides that, exceptional circumstances apart, complainants shall be anonymous in written publications and broadcasts about trials for rape offences.

A defendant may apply to a Crown court judge for the restrictions to be lifted. Permission will be given only if he can satisfy the judge that the particulars need to be made public in order to trace witnesses for the defence and that otherwise the defence would be substantially prejudiced. This is a recommendation from the Heilbron Group.

There is also power in the clause to remove or relax the restrictions if they would impose a substantial and unreasonable limitation on the reporting of the trials, contrary to the public interest. Breach of the restrictions is punishable, on summary conviction, by a fine of up to £500.

Clause 5 provides protection against prosecution for trivial breach of the restrictions on publication or broadcasting in that proceedings may not be taken without the consent of the Attorney-General. It also provides a defence for people who are not aware, and who neither suspected nor had reason to suspect, that the publication or broadcast contravened the restrictions. An example of this, perhaps, would be in the case of a whole newsagent.

Clause 6, among other things, applies the provisions of the Bill, as the Heilbron Group suggested, to attempted rape, aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring rape or attempted rape, conspiracy to rape and incitement to rape.

Rape is the most obscene four-letter word in the dictionary of a woman. It is a unique offence by a man against a woman. It is the ultimate humiliation that a man can enforce upon a woman.

This Bill will not prevent rape. It will not make it easy for a woman who has suffered this appalling ordeal to report it. What I hope it will do is to make it less difficult to report and, without taking away any rights from the defendant, give added protection to the growing numbers of women to whom this vilest of crimes will become a terrifying reality.

11.26 a.m.

This Bill is a commendable example of the way in which the Royal Commissions, tribunals, committees of inquiry and the like can be used as instruments of progress rather than as excuses for delay. The Heilbron Group was appointed in July last year. It reported in November. Here we are, in February, seeking to give legislative effect to its recommendations.

The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) for this opportunity to debate this matter. I wonder what would have happened to the Heilbron Report if it had not been for his initiative and good fortune in the Ballot. It might have been a year, or a year and a half, before the Government found time and we got around to debating it, as with the Finer Committee's Report. It might have joined the pile of dust-covered reports in the "In" tray of the Leader of the House, awaiting debate.

This is a fine example of the way in which progress can be made by the use of Commissions. I hope that the Government will take note of the speed with which we have sought to give legislative effect to the recommendations in the Bill, of which I am proud to be one of the sponsors.

The number of convictions for rape has doubled in the last 10 years. It has risen from 169 in 1965 to 343 in 1974. It is, therefore, a crime that is increasing at a disturbing rate. Moreover, there is widespread belief, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, that the actual incidence of rape is much higher than the number of convictions. This is referred to in the Report, at paragraph 153, which says that the deterrent effect of current procedure surrounding rape prevents prosecutions from taking place. The hon. Gentlemean adduced his own statistics in showing the discrepancy between reported incidents and convictions.

While many hon. Members may stress the importance of revising the law so that it reflects public attitudes concerning the relevance of a woman's previous sexual history to any given rape case, many others, particularly on the Opposition side of the House, are interested in the way in which the Bill may increase the conviction of rapists. A few months ago we all saw how, in the city of Cambridge, one lone rapist could strike terror into the hearts of all women, of whatever age, and how it completely changed the life-style of every woman living in that city. The man has been convicted since, but might he not have been found a little earlier if the law on rape had been different, and if some of the earlier victims had had a greater incentive to report the crime and had not been deterred from taking action by the many factors mentioned by the hon. Gentleman?

Relevant to the wish behind the Bill to increase the number of convictions for rape is a changed police procedure, mentioned in paragraphs 192 and 194 in the Report. Here in its Report the Group draws attention to the unfortunate experiences of many women when they reach the police station after having been raped. This is not an appropriate matter for legislation, but perhaps the Minister could tell the House whether he intends to issue guidelines to the police to give effect to some of the very sensible recommendations in Section 7 of the Report.

The Bill was very adequately introduced by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that it will be supported by those who speak in the debate I am proud to be one of the Bill's sponsors, and I commend it to the House.

11.30 a.m.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) for his kind personal tribute to me, which I greatly appreciate. I also thank him for accepting the Bill after winning the Ballot and for presenting it so admirably, and for putting forward his case so cogently and eloquently. I believe that many hon. Members will be grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward this subject today, because a number of hon. Members have been actively concerned with the subject for a long time.

In addition to congratulating my hon. Friend, I pay tribute to the many women in the country who have made their voices heard on the issue of trying to reform the law relating to rape. In some quarters there has been a great deal of complacency about the law relating to rape. But it is the women of Britain, both individually and through their organisations, such as the National Federation of Women's Institutes, who have spontaneously reacted against judicial decisions that were an affront to women. To my certain knowledge—because they were campaigning with me—they have tried to secure a change in the law for over 10 months, and some of them have been seeking a change in the law for many years. It is those people to whom we should pay tribute today. Many of them have been scorned and called "Women's Libbers". In so far as they are attempting to correct an injustice, I believe that the House should be grateful to them.

Many of these women, their organisations, and I myself became actively concerned as a result of the case of the Director of Public Prosecutions v. Morgan, which was referred to by my hon. Friend. As a result of the decision in that case, a great deal of parliamentary and non-parliamentary activity took place, but the results were not wholly successful. The main effect was that the Home Secretary set up the Heilbron Group. We were delighted with the Report of that Group. If the House owes a debt to the women of this country and their organisations, it owes a special debt to Mrs. Justice Heilbron for one of the most cogently argued and splendid reports I have ever seen.

The Heilbron Report took rape seriously, which is far more than some people do. For example, Mr. Christmas Humphreys, who has now retired as a judge—I do not want to make any attacks on judges today—freed a self-confessed double rapist who assaulted women at knife point. When the judge retired a few weeks ago he made some rather fatuous references to the crime of rape.

What my hon. Friend said this morning is sufficient to prove that there is nothing fatuous about it. In my view, rape is a vicious and a violent crime which degrades and demeans its victims. It scars the body and it scars the mind—and nowhere is the mind more scarred than in a court of law.

There is a danger that because there is great public interest in the crime of rape some of the more sensational aspects of the problem will be seized upon by some people. I hope that the House will bear with me in discussing some of the central issues relating to the law. I am glad to see present hon. Members on both sides who are interested in precisely these problems.

If the Bill is enacted, it will be the first time in history that the crime of rape has been placed, by definition, on the statute book. There has never been a definition of the crime of rape. I believe that this definition, although it does not go quite as far as I would like, will be a vast improvement on the prevailing obscurity of the law.

Obscurity is a lawyers' paradise. It has been fascinating, recently, to see so-called brilliant lawyers convincing themselves that on the question of reasonable belief that a woman consented there is no obscurity; they say that it is quite clear what the law says.

The fact is that lawyers have argued for many years about what the law really says. The whole issue has been argued at one level with the decision one way, and at a different level with a different decision, right up to the Law Lords. If the law is as clear as some lawyers would have us believe, there would have been no reason for the issue to go to the Law Lords. My hon. Friend the Minister of State will be able to enlighten the House about the clarity of the law, but if it is so clear I suggest that there would be no need for the convoluted arguments that we have heard in the courts for a number of years.

I believe that the definition proposed in the Bill will do a great deal to clarify the issue. Mrs. Justice Heilbron wanted to do exactly that. That is what we are going to get. Although it will still be conceivably possible for a woman to be sexually assaulted and for her assailant to get off scot-free because he claimed genuine, although unreasonable, belief in her consent, I believe that it will be less likely than before as a result of the Bill. So I believe that it is of profound importance.

I move on now to a number of other issues, because there is not only the issue of the consent claim by a man in a court of law. Innocent victims—women who have been raped—suffer character assassination at the hands of enthusiastic defence lawyers in the courts. Their past sexual history is often used to prove that they are untruthful rather than unchaste.

Lack of chastity is not a crime. Whatever people may think, whether it is good or bad, it is not a crime. Lack of chastity has no necessary connection with lack of truthfulness. I share the view of the Heilbron Group, which felt that excluding a woman's sex history, apart from exceptional circumstances, would reduce the court ordeal of victims and encourage them to come forward and help to apprehend the guilty. I believe that by excluding this irrelevant evidence we shall make it easier for juries to arrive at a true verdict.

On the issue of anonymity, I go all the way with my hon. Friend about the giving of anonymity to women, but I part company with him on the question of anonymity for men. Both my hon. Friend and Mrs. Justice Heilbron said that men should not be given the cloak of anonymity. I believe that women and men should be treated on an equal basis during the trial—that both the woman who is making the accusation and the man who is accused should be anonymous until a conclusion has been reached in a court of law.

I believe that a man who is accused of rape and is acquitted is much less likely to be believed by the public than one who is accused of, say, murder. The reason for this is the prevailing social attitude towards rape. I believe that a man needs anonymity, because a man is much more likely to be charged with rape when he is innocent than he is to be charged with murder, because the former is a one-to-one situation, without corroborative evidence.

The chances of a man being accused of rape when he is innocent are far greater than the chances of a man being accused of murder when he is innocent. I am not making any evaluation of that fact, but the House ought to take it into account. Because of the special nature of rape, the publicity given to a person involved in a trial for rape is in itself a serious punishment, and it is a situation in which the stigma is not completely erased by a verdict of "innocent" it the man is named.

The main provision of the Bill will ensure that from now on women will be enabled to go to a court of law to make complaints with far greater freedom in the future than they could do in the past. The fear of publicity is terrifying to a woman who has already been assaulted. The fear of having her sexual history dragged out publicly is daunting for any woman. And now that the law of rape is clearly defined we shall all be free to examine this issue with far less concern for the complexity of the problem than in the past.

I commend the Bill warmly to the House, but I would add that in Committee it may be considered necessary to add further provisions because there are many aspects of the problem of rape which have not been touched upon. It may be that in Committee other questions which are of great importance to women will be dealt with. Given that qualification, I warmly commend the Bill to the House and I congratulate my hon. Friend on having introduced it.

11.42 a.m.

As someone who has changed his mind over the past year on this matter, I give the Bill a welcome and I congratulate the two hon. Members opposite who have spoken—first, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), whose enthusiasm and passion during the past year alerted me to the fact that here was a matter which had to be considered and I could not hold on to my hitherto strongly-held view that rape was simply another crime which should be dealt with on that basis and that the law would be mistaken if it took an exceptional course in this crime.

I am therefore very pleased to see the hon. Gentleman here today, and I congratulate him. It was not his legal arguments on his previous Bill which convinced me, because I thought they were wrong, but that does not matter. The important point is that he has alerted my mind to the problem. I congratulate also the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) on choosing this Bill to introduce today. He is also to be congratulated on having the great advantage of the Government putting pen to paper on his behalf and helping him in drafting the Bill.

As it is clear that in Committee the Bill will be subject to a great deal of discussion and, possibly, amendment, I commence my comparatively brief remarks by saying that there are one or two things which I am glad the Bill does not do. A view was expressed in reputable legal circles that the crime of rape should be abolished as a separate crime. I think that would have been a great mistake. Rape as such is a well-established crime in the public mind. People understand what is meant by it. The abhorrence that the public feel is represented by the very word "rape" itself. I think we were right not to attempt to change the whole basis of the crime of rape but to keep it as a separate crime.

I am also pleased that Mrs. Justice Rose Heilbron and her Advisory Group recommended, and the Bill recognises, that we do not need to change the law so far as rape is concerned. I think that what lawyers call mens rea, the belief that the woman had consented, is a proper defence if it is properly conducted in court.

Having said that, however, it is worth noticing that the Bill strengthens the position in Clause 1(2), and it adds words in subsection (1)(b) which, I would have thought, strengthened the definition of rape:

"at that time he knows that she does not consent to the intercourse or"—

these are the important words—

"he is reckless as to whether she consents to it."

I have no doubt that it could be argued that that is in the law already.

(Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): Indeed it is. It is clearly stated in all the majority judgments.

Yes, but here we have it set out, and I should have thought that in the directions which will go to juries in the future it will strengthen the position.

Another matter which the sponsors of the Bill were wise to leave out is the suggestion that there should be a statutory number of men or women on a jury. It has already been pointed out, and I think cogently, that in most jury trials there is likely to be found a reasonable balance—or in any case, if one wanted to achieve a balance and one thought it would help, it could be achieved because of the number of men and women available for jury service. However, that is not my objection. My objection is that a rule that there should be a statutory number of men on a jury might well mean that women empanelled on a jury would feel that they were protagonists on one side or another as they had been selected because of their sex. I am sure we do not want that feeling imported into our law.

The sponsor of the Bill has pointed out the problem that a woman faces when she wishes to report the crime of rape. If she has been genuinely raped and she has done nothing to instigate that crime, it must be one of the most horrible moments that she can experience. It is only the beginning of what is, unfortunately, a very long process. She is taken to the police station. She is medically examined in the most intimate way immediately. The police have to be cautious in the extreme before proceeding, and she is asked difficult questions about her background, what she was doing, why she was there and so on. The police have to make sure that a wild allegation is not being made, and they inevitably have to carry out this distressing duty. It is a most unpleasant experience, and nothing in the Bill will change that.

Then there is a prolonged wait normally because of the delays in the courts, with which we are all familiar, before the woman goes to court, and once again she has to go through a very difficult cross-examination in public. Therefore, I welcome the recommendation by Mrs. Justice Heilbron that there should be protection for the complainant at the time of the trial. With regard to the defendant, I shall say a word in a moment.

It is not often understood how capricious reporting is. Some months ago—it may have been a year ago—there was an article in the New Scientist which dealt with the whole question of reporting. I have the figures here. I shall not trouble the House with them in any detail, but basically it appears that between one-quarter and one-third of rape cases in any given year are reported in the papers generally.

The number of cases of rape has been increasing. In 1951 119 cases came before the courts, in 1961 the number was up to 226 and in 1971 there were 358 cases. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead gave the House more recent figures than these. The figures are important only to show the amount of reporting. In 1951 28 cases were reported in the Press, in 1961 69 were reported and in 1971 91 cases were reported in newspapers. The figures show that between one-quarter and one-third received publicity. The News of the World is the main reporter of rape cases on a national scale. It carried 22 rape reports in 1951, 46 in 1961 and 62 in 1971. Reporting is going up in the same proportion as the increase in rape. In 1971 the Daily Mirror reported eight rape cases, the The Times got round to reporting three, and the Evening Standard eight.

The reporting nationally of rape cases is not what matters. It is in the local paper where damage can be done. I am convinced that a case has been made to stop that reporting, not only to protect the women but also in the interests of justice. A woman is more likely to come forward if she knows that her case will not be reported. A restriction on reporting would ensure that people who had committed this foul crime were brought to the courts and, if appropriate, convicted.

I have only one query following that. In Committee we shall consider the Bill with care. I can see the purpose behind Clause 2—the question of the freedom of the complainant. I am prepared to go with the sponsors of the Bill when they say that there must be some protection, but perhaps it goes too far. If there is not to be reporting, one has gone a long way to cure the problem, but how does one achieve justice in a situation where a woman will not be adversely affected by what goes on in court? I wonder whether we have got the balance right in Clause 2. There are a number of situations in which it is relevant that the woman's character, how she was behaving and what she was doing should be revealed. I know that a judge has full discretion to allow examination to go wider if he thinks it necessary in the interests of justice.

We should be advised to consider Clause 2 carefully in Committee to discover whether we need to draw it so tightly. I say that with confidence, because I accept the view that the questions put must not be reported in the Press. I accept that a cloak of silence has to be drawn over the woman in her interests and in the interests of justice.

I commend the Bill to the House. Its progress through Parliament will be interesting. It may look slightly different at the end, but hon. Members on both sides hope that, however it might be changed, the Bill will come through with its principles intact. It will mark a proper and welcome change in our law.

11.55 a.m.

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett), who but for a few yards would be my own Member of Parliament. I hope that his Bill will have a speedy passage through its remaining stages. So far no hon. Members have spoken against it, although there have been slight reservations from both sides.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) referred to the speed with which the Heilbron Report has been acted upon. I wish that similar speed had been shown in acting upon the Lane Report, which saw the light of day almost three years ago.

Rape is a serious, brutal and psychological assault on a woman. Apart from the physical damage that can be done—perhaps only women can appreciate the long-standing psychological damage that can ensue—rape can result in the terrible additional problem of an unwanted pregnancy. No one so far has referred to that. Very few men who are in the process of raping a woman will stop to take precautions against an unwanted pregnancy. One of the dilemmas that face us when considering this problem is that a consultant cannot wait for a rape case to be completed before he decides whether to end an unwanted pregnancy conceived in those conditions. If he waited, it would be too late.

Under existing legislation a consultant will assume that the woman has already suffered enough trauma and he will terminate the pregnancy. But the Abortion (Amendment) Bill would produce restrictions on a consultant's clinical freedom to decide how to treat a patient in those circumstances. The inclusion of the words "serious or grave" in the Bill could mean that it would not matter whether the woman had been truthful or not. The consultant could be severely hedged round in what he wished to do with a patient. He would have to agree that severe mental or physical injury had been done to his patient. This is a word of warning to the House about the two matters, which are closely related.

The emphasis in the majority of cases that are reported, as the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) said, tends to be on the lurid aspects. There has been genuine public concern arising from the publicity given to the sentencing policies in some recent cases. According to D. A. Thomas in "Principles of Sentencing",

"The emphasis in the vast majority of cases of rape is firmly on deterrence; even where the offender is a young man of good character and the girl concerned has permitted some degree of familiarity, the Court has upheld sentences of imprisonment."

More severe sentences are imposed where a group of men are involved in a joint or corporate rape.

Another category that is said to attract rather longer sentences is rape which is committed in the home of the victim following a break-in. Trial judges have said that crimes committed against housewives in their homes while going about their everyday business when their men-folk are away at work must be dealt with in such a way as to demonstrate that the law will always be concerned to protect people. However, if we consider a number of fairly recent cases we find that those words have not been followed.

For example, the defendant Taylor, who raped a widow of 76 after breaking into her house in the middle of the night, was gaoled for 10 years. Perhaps that is a rather severe sentence. Another rapist, Anderson, was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a girl of 16 and indecently assaulting a widow aged 66. McGuffie, another rapist, was put on probation for two years. He was aged 18. He raped a mother of two children who was aged 21. Perhaps his sentence was rather light. A man who broke into a woman's home and meant to rape but did not was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

More recently there was the case of Moving, a man aged 18. The case was heard by Judge Christmas Humphreys. Moving raped two women in their own homes. He pleaded guilty and was given a suspended sentence. The case caused a great deal of public concern, in my view rightly so. It caused my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and Barking (Miss Richardson) and other hon. Members to seek an interview with the Lord Chancellor. We felt that the case should be brought to the attention of the public. We felt that inconsistencies in penalties imposed by learned judges in certain serious and severe cases should be made known. We were not all suggesting that the learned judge should be removed from his job, but we felt that it was not out of order for learned judges to have regard to public opinion in these matters. That view was confirmed by the Lord Chancellor at a certain event that took place at the Mansion House some time later.

More recently there was a case concerning a young man who is a lance-corporal in the Army. In Committee perhaps we shall have the opportunity to consider the effect of the Bill on members of the Armed Forces. The lance-corporal pleaded guilty, as did Moving, to what was described as a merciless rape on a young girl. He was given a suspended sentence of six months after one of his commanding officers had said that he was a very good rugger player and another had said that he was a good soldier and should not be sent to prison. That seems an extra-ordinary judgment.

In many countries in Europe—for example, West Germany, Austria and Italy—and in the United States a member of the armed forces who is found guilty of rape is discharged. It might be wondered whether there is a special law in this country for members of the Armed Forces compared with some civilians.

I was glad to hear my hon. Friend say that he is prepared to consider in Committee the composition of juries in these cases on the recommendation of the Heilbron Committee. It is a fair proposal that there should be a minimum of four men and four women on a jury. I hope that in Committee we shall have an opportunity to consider the reasons which prompted the Heilbron Group to make that proposal and why certain people believe that it is not acceptable. I believe that it is acceptable on the ground of equality, as is the anonymity of the defendant.

A great deal of damage can be done to a man who is falsely accused of rape. If there is full publicity, there will always be those who say that there is no smoke without fire. In that way a man's reputation can be severely damaged. On the ground of equality, it is correct to accept the recommendation that the woman should remain anonymous and that the defendant's name should be withheld until the end of the trial, and then disclosed only on the direction of the judge, assuming that the judge would do so only in cases where the defendant had been found guilty.

It has been canvassed whether a judge should or should not have power to allow the name of the complainant to be made known in certain cases. I am sure the hon. Lady would agree that that is a matter which would have to be hedged in very carefully. Such information could be made known only in the event of a conviction. In any other circumstances we should be giving a judge the right to give subsidiary punishment when he felt that the accused had got off on a technicality. That would be very unsatisfactory.

I accept that that is a difficulty which will have to be considered. There are probably legal parallels where judges have that discretion. My hon. Friend the Minister of State might be able to give us some guidance.

It is distasteful for women to have to answer questions in court about their previous experience. We must remember that it is possible for a prostitute to be raped. One can think of circumstances in which a pimp, for example, can rape one of his women. It can be extremely prejudicial if a woman has to recount in court her previous sexual experience and her occupation.

I hope that my hon. Friend will explain Clause 4 (3). As I understand it, the subsection gives a judge power to relax restrictions on publicity regarding the complainant if he feels it is in the public interest so to do. I cannot bring to mind any cases where that might be desirable, but perhaps my hon. Friend, with his great experience, will be able to enlighten us.

I join those on both sides of the House who have wished the Bill a speedy passage through Committee. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead on bringing the Bill forward.

12.10 p.m.

As rape is the only offence where the victim is equally on trial throughout the proceedings, that aspect, more than the nature of the offence, makes it unique in criminal proceedings. Therefore, it is right that we should examine at least one way in which the victim's ordeal might be alleviated. I want to confine my remarks to the coverage of these cases by the Press and to examine how they are reported.

I join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) on introducing the Bill. I couple those congratulations with the equal commendation given to Rose Heilbron and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), who has done so much to publicise the need for this measure. I first met my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead at a low point in his career eight years ago. If he could survive that he could survive anything, and indeed he has done so triumphantly. The honour he has in representing Hemel Hempstead should be coupled with the privilege of Hemel Hempstead in having the good fortune to be represented by him. He has covered a great deal of ground in a short parliamentary career, in which this measure is so far the crowning point.

The Bill is a necessary piece of legislation and I am delighted that it has appeared so quickly after the Heilbron Report. There have been other reports in the past, such as the Finer Report and the Houghton Report, when matters of great import have been dealt with by outside committees and when the House has not even debated those matters, much less dealt with legislation. Certainly the Heilbron Report was speedily produced and its recommendations have been unanimously accepted. I hope that the Bill will be given a speedy Committee stage.

I do not go along with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South in the implications he reads into the Morgan verdict. I hope that in Committee we shall not become side-tracked into a debate aimed at changing the law in that respect. However, we must keep clearly in our minds the effect of the case of the Director of Public Prosecutions v. Morgan.

The provisions of the Bill will liberate women from some of the shame and guilt always associated with effecting a prosecution for rape. I am referring not merely to the psychological harm, physical violence, terror and injury that arise from these assaults but to the enormous difficulties encounterd by the victims in the proceedings leading to a prosecution.

I was greatly influenced by an account in The Times a couple of years ago relating the experiences of a student at Sussex University. The girl had been raped after she hitch-hiked late at night. Students are thought to be fair game. When students go into a witness box, judges do not always treat them as they would treat other, "more respectable" members of society.

The ordeal suffered by that young girl is set out in the report in The Times. The police caught the man responsible two or three hours after the offence. However, the girl was kept for eight hours in a police station and was subjected to extremely degrading physical examination and also to police interrogation. When brought into court, she was assured by the police several times that there would be no need for her name to be used. She said in the article:

"The first thing I was told when I arrived at court on the morning of the trial was that names are never withheld except in the case of juveniles."

That may or may not be true, but her name was used throughout the proceedings, although the man concerned pleaded guilty and although the victim was clearly a good witness.

Nevertheless, that good friend of many Labour Members, Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson, in summing up the case, said:

"It was, as rape goes, a pretty anaemic affair. This man had made a fool of himself but the girl was almost equally stupid. This practice of hitch-hiking must be stopped."

The rapist in that case was given a two-year suspended sentence. Perhaps Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson would like to have handed down a sentence for the grievous crime of hitch-hiking.

The fact is that medical details and accounts of past sexual history can be used in evidence for the defence. Many victims know that the shame and degradation suffered in court can be almost as bad as the experience undergone during the offence. That is the terrible aspect of the offence.

I wish to examine how the Press has reported these matters. The hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) has already mentioned the growing incidence of rape reports in the national Press. I think he, too, was drawing on a report which appeared in New Society by Keith Soothill and Anthea Jack. There are more reports of rape cases in the national Press because there is a great incidence of the crime of rape—indeed, more rape cases are now reported in the Press than was the case 20 years ago.

The inference I draw from the New Society survey is that the cases that obtain national publicity appear in the Press because one Sunday newspaper deals in great and lubricious detail with court proceedings. The survey found that between 1951 and 1971 one person in four could expect some publicity in the national Press as a result of court proceedings—let alone the publicity received in local newspapers, although it must be said that the local Press does not tend to follow the practices of the national Press.

We all know that at present national newspapers are engaged in a circulation war and are looking over their shoulders at each other. No national newspaper editor, to my knowledge, wishes to become involved, even at one remove, in the degradation of victims when names and addresses are published at the committal stage and throughout the trial until the point of sentence. As we have seen in the reporting of another alleged scandal in the last three or four weeks, however, once one London evening newspaper reports such matters, the other London evening newspaper follows suit, and this applies to the national tabloids, and to the Sunday newspapers. That is why so many victims have been named in court reports in newspapers. The percentage had not changed between 1951 and 1971 when the last survey was taken, and is 54 per cent. In other words, 54 per cent. of all women who are involved in the courts in rape proceedings must go through the ordeal of seeing their names, and sometimes addresses, and other details, printed in the Press.

There is a stereotyped form in which such cases are reported. Indeed, from a journalistic point of view in terms of increasing circulation the best case is the stereotyped case. We have seen in recent days how that stereotype has been used in regard to the killing of Angolan mercenaries by somebody who has been described as "Colonel Callan". The Press has fastened on that name because it is close enough to a television hero and it identifies the figure in the public mind as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. The same kind of argument applies to reports of rape cases but we see headlines using phrases such as "Bunny Girl", "Dancer" or "Hostess" as the main link. It is more likely that by using such a link all the details of the victim's personal life and background can be publicised.

A recent case dealt with a man described as a "Casanova Copper" who was finally sentenced—and quite rightly—to seven years' imprisonment for the rape of a dancer. A number of pictures were used of the girl posing, as she had done in her profession, for various pin-up pictures. There were a number of headlines about her and, more importantly, her name and address were used in many of the national newspapers throughout the proceedings—as well as the details of her ordeal in very small print indeed.

I do not believe that that is right. The girl's father protested about the behaviour of the Press after the case. Many national newspapers and every national newspaper editor I have ever met would like restrictions of the kind contained in Clause 4 of the Bill. A national newspaper editor is looking one way at his rivals and at circulation and the other way at the common morality of the job he is doing. If Clause 4 is implemented, as I hope it will be, we shall have effected that proscription which will allow the national newspaper editor to say "I can't print that, and no other newspaper can either. So I will not lose out." That is what the Press likes and what it would wish to have.

We face a difficulty, and this is my one qualification, concerning the question of anonymity for all participants. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) has already mentioned the harm that can be done to a man who is wrongly accused of rape. It is true that in a small minority of cases there is the possibility of a malicious prosecution, of a man being "framed". We all know what that man will endure, certainly in the reporting of the committal stage. We know the long period that may ensue before the case comes to the court where the sentence will be passed down.

In Committee we must ask ourselves whether we have extended anonymity far enough and whether there is not a point within the discretion of the judge, at the time when the case is dismissed or the sentence is handed down, when the rule of anonymity may be changed or relaxed. It must, however, be an absolute rule, subject to whatever qualifications my hon. Friend intends in Clause 4. I am a little puzzled about this point. At the earlier stage, the reporting of committal proceedings, much of the agony takes place. The name and address are given of the man on trial, who has still not been found guilty. Always for the woman, if her name is being used, there is great distress. Given that minor qualification, I whole-heartedly support the Bill and hope that we can give it a speedy passage.

12.23 p.m.

On behalf of the Opposition I warmly welcome this Bill and express the hope that it receives a Second Reading. I—and I am sure I speak for all of us—sympathise profoundly with the predicament of the women described by the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) in his graphic references to the letters he has received. Nothing could be more moving than the expression of desolation of innocent women left in this appalling predicament, with no apparent way of vindicating their reputation and no apparent recourse to bringing about the punishment of those who have outraged them.

For this reason we warmly welcome the rapid deliberations of the Heilbron Group, its conclusions, and this attempt to encapsulate its findings by the hon. Member. Perhaps the Minister of State can tell us to what extent the Government have been able to give considered and extensive assistance to the promoter of the Bill so that we know whether the technical and legal matters have received proper scruntiny.

I specially welcome the attempt to define rape in Clause 1 and particularly the deliberate highlighting of the factor of consent and recklessness. In this context I underline the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell), that for many of us the most significant feature of the Bill is not the dreadfully complicated legal drafting of Clause 2 but the sweeping and comparatively simple provisions about anonymity. This is the sea change that the Bill brings about.

The result of that change will, I hope, be that many more cases will be brought forward. All of the cases to which the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead referred might have been brought under the cloak of anonymity. That gives rise to an important new factor. Because of the possibility of further cases coming forward there will be brought to the attention of the courts what I will describe as, I hope not in inhuman terms, far more marginal cases. Here I take up a point made by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short). Because more of these marginal cases will come before the courts we shall have to be careful and have regard to the grave damage that can be done to a man who is unjustly accused of rape.

We have carefully to consider the impact of Clause 2, with its Draconian changes in the way that evidence can be brought forward in this context of the new kind of marginal case we may be having. There is always bound to be the greatest difficulty in reaching a proper judgment in such marginal cases. The mens rea argument in this context must be extremely difficult to establish. We are talking about the disposition of the mind in the passion of sexual intercourse or attempted sexual intercourse. The mind is profoundly volatile. There is a sense of all rational control or deliberation seeping away or being under much less deliberative control.

It is almost inherent in the nature of the passions and the acts we are concerned with that feeling overcomes or ceases directly to control and regulate action. It is part of the natural spontaneity of the action, and it is bound to be like this. How difficult it will be, in the sort of marginal case that will come forward under the anonymity provisions, to be certain that justice is being done to a young man.

I can think of many cases where there would be difficult relationship problems and difficulty in establishing consent, state of mind, or recklessness. All of these cases will come forward, rightly and properly. Above all, we must give the benefit of the doubt to the woman. It will be very tricky if, under these circumstances, the burden of proof placed upon a young man is sharply circumscribed by the provisions of Clause 2. This is where we need an assurance from the Minister to the effect that Clause 2 has had some sort of scrutiny by his Dept. I am not an expert on the law—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees Davies) knows more about that. I hope that we can have an assurance that the technical and legal bodies have examined this matter. Against the background of the new circumstances I very much welcome the attempt in Clause 2 to defend the reputation of the woman, even when she is to have the added benefit of anonymity. I take the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Black-pool, North that we shall have to look carefully at Clause 2 to make sure that we can still do justice in the more difficult cases that will come forward.

There is a technical point on which I would like the Minister's advice. It concerns the relationship between Clause 1(1) and (2)—in which the attempt is made to define rape—and the rather wider ambit of the definition clause, Clause 6, in which a rape offence is precisely defined so as to include quite clearly cases where sexual intercourse, that is penetration, has not necessarily occurred but where there has been an attempt to do that.

Here we come to a problematic area. For example, the phrase "conspiracy to rape", which will be one of the matters with which juries will be concerned, raises difficulties. The rape offence, which includes conspiracy to rape, is the whole meat of Clause 2 and the rest of the Bill. A conspiracy to rape could arise from a situation in which a man rings up the secretary of an escort agency and says, "I want a nice, pretty young girl to take out this evening. Can you arrange it? The more cheerful, the more free and easy she is the better." The escort agency may provide a girl. The equivocation of the relationship which may be established between them, which could lead to an attempt at sexual intercourse without resulting in it, will produce a situation in which there is conspiracy to rape.

May produce it.

Yes. The hon. Gentleman is a lawyer and he probably knows better than I do, but we shall have to consider carefully in Committee the attempt in Clause 2 sharply to define rape and the broad brush description of the offence in Clause 6.

I disagree with what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Black-pool, North said on the question of juries. Mrs. Justice Heilbron was right on this matter. When we are considering matters that intimately affect the lives, health and well-being of women, because of their sex and the special features of their sex, it is entirely reasonable, as with the Lane Committee and the Heilbron Group, that we should weigh carefully the question of the number of women who should take part in the committee of inquiry. That applies no less forcefully to the question of selecting juries to hear rape cases. I hope that in Committee it will be possible to introduce a new clause giving effect to what the Heilbron Group said in this context.

Against the background of those general, perhaps probing, inquiries, I very much welcome the Bill, and wish it satisfactory progress.

12.31 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) has saved me trouble on two counts. First, he has introduced the Bill. The hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) asked to what extent we had been able to help my hon. Friend. In fact, the parliamentary draftsmen drafted the Bill. There would have been a Government Bill had there been time in the present Session, and we are grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing his Bill under the Private Member's procedure. He and his sponsors are responsible for the ultimate decisions on the Bill, but we are giving all the assistance we can.

In addition to paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead for his cogent speech, I wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). I am sorry that he is not present, because he articulated, as is his genius, the general feeling of disquiet about rape cases and rape generally felt by the public, particularly women. Although, as I shall seek to show, I think that he got the major issue wrong—I believe that the Heilbron Group proved that he got it wrong, and he now accepts that he got it wrong—we owe him a debt of gratitude for indicating the nature of the disquiet and for pushing to have the issue examined.

Because we recognised the extent of that disquiet, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary agreed to appoint the group headed by Mrs. Justice Heilbron and gave it express instructions to report within a few months because we were anxious to deal with the problems, if problems were seen to emerge from the group's Report, in this Session. That is why we have been able to be so expeditious in this matter.

I indicated that there was a degree of dispute between my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South and myself. When he was talking about the complacency that exists in certain quarters, I noticed that he did not choose to mention names but was looking directly at me. I plead guilty to scepticism about the main brunt of his criticism, last year, of the Morgan judgment. If he were present to listen to me, I am sure that he would be only too willing to agree that that scepticism was justified.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead has indicated the general nature of the Bill and therefore I need not go into it, but I wish to explain why I am convinced that the Heilbron judgment was absolutely right and that the Morgan judgment was an essential step in confirming one of the most important principles in English criminal law, namely, that a man shall not be convicted for making an honest mistake. If we ever reached that stage, there would be real danger for people coming before the criminal courts.

A crime must be a deliberate or reckless intent to do something that society brands as criminal. Only that justifies punishment. In civil legislation, there is clearly room for a fault to be penalised if it is merely a mistake. We do that in relation to negligence generally in the civil courts, but not in the criminal courts. The mistake that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South made, and in which he was joined by many people in the country, was in thinking that the Morgan judgment meant that anybody could get away with an unprovoked attack on a woman and that a man should therefore be penalised by reason of the effect on the woman rather than because of his intention.

There was a phrase in the speech of the hon. Member for Barkston Ash with which I profoundly disagreed and which, on reflection, he would probably want to change. He said that in these cases we should, above all, give the benefit of the doubt to the woman. I disagree entirely. A criminal case is a criminal case. The prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. If there is doubt, it must be given to the accused, and in this instance the accused is the man. If we were ever to lose sight of that, men would be in danger of being sent to prison for long terms for what could have been an honest mistake. I shall show later that in a case that followed the Morgan judgment that is precisely what happened.

The difficulty about rape is simply that the act of intercourse is the same whether it is the most tender expression of human relationship between a man and his wife in the matrimonial bed or a savage, sadistic attack by a brute upon a defenceless female. What is different is the intention. Sometimes that intention is manifested with marks of violence, but even with marks of violence the act can be consensual.

When I was in practice I was involved in a case between a husband and wife in which the wife alleged that the husband insisted that she hit him with a riding crop in the act of sexual intercourse. Much to my surprise, when the answer came in from the respondent, I found that he agreed that that was the way in which they had sexual intercourse, but he said that it was because she wanted him to hit her with a riding crop. They agreed that this bizarre act of violence in sexual relationship was done by consent between the pair of them.

Therefore, marks of violence do not necessarily vitiate consent. It may be there in any event. The difference is the mental intent of the man and the woman, and in criminal cases it is notoriously difficult to prove intent. That is why this whole question of rape is so difficult. There may be a point at which the woman has not resisted physically, at which the man has applied no physical violence or physical pressure, and yet the woman is not consenting. It may be difficult in certain circumstances for the man to understand that she is not consenting.

That is where the Morgan judgment came in—to decide the attitude of the law when the man honestly believed that there was consent. It is very rare for a case to turn upon that fine judgment. It would not happen in many cases. In most cases, the acts of a man or woman would be enough to indicate that the man knew perfectly well that the woman was not consenting. If he used violence, or the woman screamed, or there was evidence of torn clothing, these are matters a jury would be perfectly entitled to consider, and which the Morgan judgment indicated that a jury should concern itself with. They indicate that a man is not telling the truth when he says that he thought a woman was consenting.

A rare case is one like the Morgan case, where the husband has indicated to a man that his wife is willing and agrees to having sexual intercourse with him. The House of Lords decided in the Morgan case that, on the facts, that defence was never open and, despite their judgment, they convicted.

In the Cogan case, a decision was made in the lower courts after the Morgan decision in the Court of Appeal. It was known that the Morgan decision was going to the House of Lords and therefore a special verdict was returned in the Cogan case. The verdict was that the man believed that the woman was consenting, but that his belief was based on unreasonable grounds. It was percisely that area in which the Morgan judgment made a difference when the Court of Appeal decided the Cogan case. It had the advantage of the House of Lords judgment and overrode the jury.

There is another case, the details of which I have only to spell out for hon. Members to see how rare it would be. A man invited another man to come home with him after they had been out drinking at night. When they got home, the husband went to bed with his wife and, when they had undressed, he told her that he was going to invite the other man to have intercourse with her. He invited the other man upstairs and said: "I am going to have intercourse with my wife. You can follow." The husband had intercourse in the presence of the man and then invited the man to follow. He did so. The woman agreed that she never struggled or said "No". The most she did was to cry in the course of having intercourse with the second man. The man said: "I honestly believed that the husband's invitation was acceptable to the wife". The jury accepted that. Who would say that a man in that state of mind—he honestly believed that consent had been given—should be convicted of a criminal offence? Yet the jury was bound to convict on the direction given to it in the first place, and it did so. The man was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.

I felt so strongly that this kind of situation was wrong and that we should not convict a man for making an honest mistake that I resisted my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South in the first place, and we insisted that the Heilbron Group should consider the matter. It has now been considered, and my hon. Friend agrees that that consideration has resulted in a cogent Report. Its cogency demonstrates that my hon. Friend was wrong, and gives us the opportunity to make crystal clear to all concerned—including the women's lobbies, who were very agitated about the matter—what the Morgan judgment meant. It meant that if a man is reckless in deciding whether a woman is consenting, he can be convicted of rape. In deciding whether a man is speaking the truth when he says that he honestly believed a woman was consenting, a jury is entitled to take into account the fact that on reasonable grounds other people would not have said there was any consent. These factors are valid not to the issue of consent but to the issue of establishing the credibility of the accused and his claim that he believed the woman was consenting.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the difference between us has been narrowed by the Heilbron Report? I accept that provided recklessness is fully taken into account by juries, which it has not necessarily been in the past, we have moved a long way towards at least clarifying an issue which has be-devilled the law relating to rape.

I do not want to disagree when my hon. Friend and I have reached a moment of agreement, but the Morgan judgment confirms that recklessness is an essential requisite of the crime of rape and it could negative an allegation of honest belief in consent. The Bill is saying no more than that. That is what I told my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South last year. That is why I did not think the Morgan judgment changed the pre-existing law on rape, and why I was reluctant to amend it.

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the crucial issue, as far as the public were concerned, and the reason why there was so much protest and support for the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), was not that the Minister or lawyers believed that the Morgan judgment did not change the situation but that a large number of men and women read reports of the Morgan case and believed that the situation had been changed?

I take that point very seriously. It was precisely that point that persuaded us to set un the Heilbron Group, and why we accept, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, the cogency of the Report, which clarifies for the public what those who are informed on this subject always knew—that the Morgan judgment did not change the law and that the essential requisites in that case afforded a proper defence to an innocent woman who was raped. It is for that reason we support this Bill.

Does my hon. Friend not agree that much of the public understanding of the Morgan verdict arose from the fact that it was reported in certain quarters as "the rapists' charter", and other such names?

I am coming to the question of the Press in a moment. I am not responsible for the way in which the Press reports anything, least of all my own speeches. I agree with my hon. Friend. A great deal of the trouble arose because there was a misunderstanding by the Press about the meaning of the Morgan judgment. It is useful that we have now put the matter right.

I agree with what the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) said about Clause 1(2). It reasserts the pre-existing law and the law as stated in the Morgan judgment, but it might be understood as meaning a change in the substantive law on rape, and we can consider in Committee whether it is necessary to include it in the Bill.

The Bill has been drafted entirely on the Heilbron package. We thought it right to give legislative substance to all but two of the recommendations, but that does not mean that we do not have some reservations about the precise balance. The Government are prepared to look at any suggestions for striking a rather firmer balance. That all deals with the major issue in the Bill.

The second issue is the question of attacks on the character of the prosecutrix—an issue which, in my view, was always the most important cause of grievance for women. I do not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North that merely because we have protected women to some extent by anonymity it is possible to keep the existing rules about attacking the character of the prosecutrix.

I believe that the rules were determined by nineteeenth-century judges according to a code and moral outlook which is now past, and that most people would now agree that the sexual behaviour of a woman has no relevance to a particular case unless it indicates to the jury either that she is not telling the truth or that the man's story about what actually happened is, as Heilbron suggests, "so strikingly similar" to some part of her pre-existing sexual history that it has relevance in the particular case.

We all know what we mean by "what is relevant in those circumstances." Nevertheless, Heilbron thought it necessary to spell it out in some detail, and we have tried in Clause 2 to give legislative effect to what Heilbron recommended. However, I must agree with the hon. Member for Barkston Ash that the clause is an extremely complex piece of drafting. The parliamentary draftsman has done his best, but it will be extremely difficult for judges, let alone juries, to understand what it means. Perhaps we can simplify it in Committee.

I put forward for the consideration of the sponsors of the Bill in due course the suggestion that it might be enough, now that this whole issue has been raised and Heilbron has reported, if an unfettered discretion were given to the judge in certain circumstances to allow cross-examination about the prosecutrix's moral character.

The reason why this aspect of the matter is so complex is that Heilbron wanted to limit the area of discretion to something which was "strikingly similar", but I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Blackpool, North that one can envisage circumstances in which the woman's moral character may be relevant but is not strikingly similar to the facts of the particular case. Perhaps we may discuss that also in Committee.

I turn now to the question of anonymity. I confess that this arose first for me as the result of a Question that I was asked immediately following the notorious case—the Norwich case—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) referred. I was asked whether we would introduce anonymity for complainants in rape cases. My judgment at that time was that it would be such a marked change that it would be wrong to do it, because I could conceive of circumstances in which there would be injustice to an acquitted defendant who had rightly claimed that a woman had made a false accusation against him. If she were to remain anonymous and he did not, he would have to bear the full brunt of the complaint. However, to allow him anonymity seemed to me to make a substantial breach in the fundamental principle of English justice, that it is done in public and is known to the public.

It is not just a matter of Press interest. There is a real public interest in people knowing that matters discussed in court are available to them, and to make the accused person anonymous would, I thought, make a substantial breach in that principle. Therefore, I felt at that time that we could not take that step, but I indicated in my answer that in particular cases the judge could ask the Press not to disclose the name, because I thought that the principle that applied in blackmail was a principle general to the whole of English criminal jurisprudence.

Unfortunately, in the contempt case that was brought against Paul Foot the Lord Chief Justice indicated that, in his view, that principle applied only to blackmail and that if it were meant to apply to rape it would require legislation. Therefore, I am bound to accept the Heilbron recommendation that we must apply anonymity to the complainant only through legislation. I must add that I have not decided in my own mind whether my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) is right in saying that there ought to be anonymity for the defendant in those circumstances, and I think that that, also, is a matter that we shall have to discuss at some length in Committee.

I come now to two detailed points. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East asked about Clause 4(3)——

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I should like to raise a question about anonymity before he passes to certain technical matters, as I gather he is about to do. Clause 4(1) begins:

"Subject to subsection (7)(a) of this section, after a person is accused of a rape offence no matter likely to lead members of the public to identify a woman as the complainant"

shall be disclosed, and Clause 6, the definition clause, tells us that

"'rape offence' means any of the following"—

and then, after rape itself, we find

"attempted rape, aiding, abetting, counselling and procuring rape or attempted rape, conspiracy to rape and incitement to rape".

I may be mistaken, but are we not widening the whole notion of anonymity very much further than many hon. Members would think right, taking it beyond rape, or attempted rape?

That is one of the technical points to which I was coming. First, I want to deal with the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East. Clause 4(3) is an attempt to meet the point raised in paragraph 167 of the Heilbron Report, which refers to the situation in which the defendant is the husband of the complainant, which means that her name will be divulged in any case, or where her position and plight have been the subject of wide public knowledge and comment in the Press before it became clear that she was the victim of a rape offence. For example, if Lesley Whittle had been raped instead of being murdered and all the preceding publicity had taken place, it would have been very difficult in certain circumstances not to divulge her name when the ultimate case came on. I am not sure that we have it right in Clause 4(3), and I shall listen to anything said in Committee about it.

I turn now to the question of Clause 6, which was raised by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash and his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Blackpool, North. How far do we go? If we are giving anonymity to complainants in rape cases, should we give anonymity to complainants in indecent assault cases, in incest cases, in buggery cases and in homosexual cases? Heilbron's answer was that these are wider issues, which require much greater consideration. The line which Heilbron would draw is that it should apply only to rape and to inchoate offences, which means attempt, conspiracy, and so on. Incidentally, I should tell the hon. Member for Barkston Ash that nothing in Clause 6 creates a new offence. These are offences already under the law. All that Clause 6 does is to lay down where anonymity shall apply.

We are, therefore, in the rather absurd situation that if a man is charged with indecent assault upon a woman and is charged also with attempted rape, anonymity applies in relation to the attempted rape but not to the indecent assault. Equally, in relation to rape, the jury can always bring in the lesser verdict of indecent assault if it is not satisfied about rape. If the jury does that, the woman is not anonymous unless the newspapers respect her anonymity.

I regard that as part of the absurdity of trying to legislate in one area without considering the implications for other areas. This, also, is a matter that we shall have to discuss in Committee. I cannot at the moment see how we can resolve that problem. We have to draw the line somewhere. We have drawn it as in the Bill. It is arbitrary, and it may give rise to difficulty, but, as at present advised, I think, on balance, that that is the best we can do. I shall listen to such words of wisdom as pour upon me in Committee and see whether there is a better line that we can draw.

Following what my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) said about the defendant in a case, I have in mind the case of conspiracy to destroy a man's character by the use of a charge of rape which is completely false. When a defendant claims, as part of his defence, that there is a conspiracy against him with the object of destroying his character because of his position in society or politics, would it not be fair to give him the kind of defence that the Bill would provide for the woman?

That is one of the factors that we shall have to discuss in Committee. I see great force in my hon. Friend's position. As I said, that is one reason why I hold reservations about legislating about anonymity in the first place. That is just one of the many circumstances that we shall have to talk about. I do not think that we shall be able to resolve this dispute any more fairly than is provided for in the Bill. Heilbron considered it and showed the difficulties of going as far as my hon. Friend would wish. We shall discuss these matters in what I am sure will be interesting debates in Committee.

In view of what I have said, it is perhaps unnecessary to say that the Government give full support to the Bill. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing it, and I hope that it will receive a Second Reading.

1.1 p.m.

I have considerable interest in this subject as a member of the Criminal Bar Association, to whose views on certain aspects of the Bill I intend to refer.

I propose to support the Second Reading, although I certainly want to see substantial amendment of the Bill in certain respects. I have probably engaged in more prosecutions and defences in rape cases over many years than anyone else in either House. I began in chambers which dealt entirely with prosecutions and I now have my own which do a large number of defences as well. I have also been directly concerned in considering these matters, notably the important question of anonymity.

I share the view of the Criminal Bar Association, which, although it has every reason to protect the principle of publication in full of any trial, has reluctantly concluded that there should be anonymity. Of course the public will still be able to attend the trial throughout. It will not be held in camera. There will be a protection against advertisement and publicity in the media only. If that is the position, the accused person himself must as a matter of justice be entitled to equivalent protection.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham——

Woolwich, West.

I beg my hon. Friend's pardon: of course, he was the conqueror of Woolwich. My hon Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) put his finger upon the key issue in an intervention when he said that, at the time of the Morgan trial, there was a strong current of feeling in the country, particularly among women, that they were not being treated fairly in rape cases. I start from that basis too. There was a feeling that in some way they were liable to attack, to have their reputations and characters exposed even more than the man and that they were severely affected.

When that case occurred, women thought that in some way the law had been extended in defence of the rapist, whereas nothing of the kind had happened. There was complete confusion. The Press did not understand the legal aspects—there was no particular reason why it should—and did not try to find out. The Press went sailing off down the line that in some way a rapist could wrongly be found not guilty having regard to the existing condition of the law. But there never was any confusion. The law is extremely easy to state and to explain to the jury. I have never found the slightest difficulty in doing so in the many cases with which I have been concerned.

First of all, the definition of rape, a common law definition going back hundreds of years, is the unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent. In order to be found guilty, a man must have mens rea, which simply means that he must have a guilty mind, that he must either know or believe that the woman does not consent.

The case of Morgan and Others got into a terrible muddle because the judge gave a misdirection, that the man had to have "reasonable grounds" for believing what he alleged—namely, consent. If he had left out those words, the men would have been convicted in the first place and the case would never have gone to the House of Lords.

Let us not forget that in that case there was overwhelming evidence of rape which gave rise to the application of the "proviso". In a case, notwithstanding there is a misdirection in point of law, where the evidence is so overwhelming that the man will be convicted anyway, the court of Appeal, Criminal Division, is entitled to say so and convict.

I am grateful for some of the details of the Morgan case to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), who defended Morgan. A husband took three men into his own home, they raped his wife and he had sexual intercourse with her thereafter. It was suggested that in some way they had reasonable grounds for thinking that the woman consented because the husband had told them that his wife was "kinky" and that she would pretend that she was being raped. That was the defence. There were many other aspects of the confessions and other statements by the three accused which made it plain that they were all guilty. It was this case which led eventually to the appointment of the Heilbron Advisory Group.

Let us look back at the history of the offence of rape. From time immemorial death was the penalty for rape. William the Conqueror changed all that by providing that the penalty for rape, which some people might think not unsuitable, was castration and/or loss of one's eyes. So in a particularly bad case the man lost it all.

The powers-that-be went to the other extreme. In the reign of Edward I it was provided that rape should be no more than a physical trespass and the penalty was reduced to two years' imprisonment or a fine for the benefit of the king. So I suppose he gained some mercenary benefit from the number of rapes which occurred. After that, in 13 Edward I, so many rapes were taking place that they changed to imprisonment for life. Under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, it was made a felony with life imprisonment, a penalty preserved by the Sexual Offences Act 1956. It is true that an assault occasioning grievous bodily harm can also attract a penalty up to and including life imprisonment.

However, rape is merely a physical assault accompanied with sexual undertones. It is, in fact, a case of violent assault, and it is right that the Commission is now considering whether rape should continue to be an offence in our law. In the Bill we propose to turn it from a common law offence into a statutory offence, or at least we intend to define it. We must define it properly because Clause 1 is nothing more than an attempt to declare the existing law. It does not define "rape" or extend it to something that it is not. I accept it on that basis but not upon the basis that it alters the law.

Rape is a serious criminal offence and it would be wholly wrong for men to be found guilty of rape when they do not have a guilty mind.

I turn to the different types of case involved. There was the case in Germany of a company sergeant major in the Military Police who had a fine record. He went to the sergeants' mess one night and got very drunk. He then went off to bed. There was quite clear evidence that he went to his neighbour's house, which was occupied by a married fellow soldier. The sergeant major was himself married. He went into the bedroom, got straight into bed and promptly had sexual intercourse with the woman in the bed, who was not his wife but the wife of the corporal next door. The question that the court martial had to determine was whether it was rape. There was no doubt that his initial approaches were done, befuddled with drink, without that knowledge. The woman concerned woke up and undoubtedly repelled his advances. He came to know that it was not his wife but the wife of the man living next door. Those were the circumstances of the trial, and go to the question of recklessness. The man was found guilty on the perfectly proper evidence that at the time he made the penetration into that woman he had undoubtedly recognised that she was not his wife and was not consenting. Therefore, it was rape.

In certain circumstances it could well be said that if a man got extremely drunk he was being reckless and he should be found guilty. We have to ensure that consideration is given to what is meant by "drunken" and its effect upon mens rea. Unattractive though the case in Germany may have been, circumstances of that kind do occur in cases of drink and we must be very careful about them.

If the man had been so befuddled and had not recognised that the woman was not his wife and, therefore, had been found not guilty of rape, what else could he have been found guilty of? The woman in that situation would be in the same situation whether the man was found guilty of rape or found guilty of the lesser offence. The anonymity provisions should cover both equally.

The anonymity provisions should certainly cover them. I was dealing with the question of conviction. The man could be found guilty of the lesser offence of indecent assault. But if the jury was of the opinion that he was, in his own belief, genuinely making love to his wife—which was his defence in this case—he would be found not guilty. We have to be clear that it is a criminal offence as against the man and that there is no question that there is anything wrong as regards the woman. In the case I have cited, the House will recognise that at no time was the woman impugned as to her honour. There was no question of its being suggested that she was a consenting party. It is only in cases where it is suggested that a woman consents that we must have protection in the procedures of the courts.

In a great many cases the question is one of identity—did he commit the offence at all? It is not by any means always a question of assent. If this is declaratory of the law, I am in favour of it.

I wish to criticise certain aspects of the Heilbron Group. First, I criticise the members of the Group and its Report. I have no criticism whatever about the judge. She was a judge of considerable experience in this branch of the law and is highly respected in all matters. Although I do not direct personal criticism against the other appointees—they all have distinguished backgrounds—I venture to point out that three of the remaining four do not have experience in these matters. One appointee was a professor of law who specialises in land law and Commonwealth law. He is a distinguished professor at the University of Canterbury. Another was a psychiatrist and a professor who has some knowledge in forensic science. The third was Dr. Mia Pringle, who is a children's psychologist. I am afraid I know nothing about the other lady. Therefore, none of the other members, though wholly admirable, had experience of trials. No doubt it was valuable to have had a psychiatrist or psychologist in the Group, but the Group was rather narrow. It is the area of trials of rape with which we are most concerned in this Bill.

The Bill is not concerned about important matters, such as whether there should be an existing rape offence, whether it should be included within the laws of assault or what should be the attitude to penal questions or other psychiatric issues. I venture to point out that it was not the best group that has ever been set up. Furthermore, it was asked to report quickly, and as a result it reported on a number of matters which, it is only fair to say, must be criticised.

At paragraph 188 the Group suggests that we should alter the whole of the procedures relating to challenge by jury. That is a tall order. For a committee of this kind, without culling the views of the Bar and the judges, to say that the procedure for challenge by jury should be altered is a considerable recommendation. The Group said.

"In our view the right course is to aim at altering the procedures so as to ensure that in rape trials there is a minimum of four women and also four men on a jury, in order to keep the balance of the sexes within reasonable bounds.… As regards the use of the peremptory challenges (which are, undoubtedly, often used to exclude women or to get other age groups) we suggest that challenges should not be capable of being used so as to frustrate the minimum numbers."

I am sorry to say that that paragraph shows great inexperience of rape trials. It is the wide experience of members of the Criminal Bar that it is extremely wise to have one or two ladies on the jury.

Curiously, and contrary to the view implicit in that paragraph, I have very little doubt that it is essential to have women in a rape case jury if one is defending. They are very often far harder upon their sex than men. Therefore, the implicit assumption there that people will challenge to get the women off the jury is wrong.

However, in any event, the right of challenge is the oldest right given to any accused person. To destroy that right of challenge by gaily saying that it is not to apply in rape cases not only shows a lack of consideration for the basic principles of law and the right of the defence; it also shows a misunderstanding of the psychology of men and women in that very type of trial. I would strongly oppose any question of altering the general position on challenge.

I should like to add this postscript to what I say in that regard. It is difficult now to get even six men and six women in a trial at the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey today. One tends to get more women than men. Certainly this has completely changed in recent times. That is equally applicable to the Crown courts in London. I cannot speak for courts outside London, but I have made inquiries and I understand that plenty of women are available as jurors. Therefore, this point is not likely to arise and, whatever view is expressed by Heilbron, I do not think that there will be any great difficulty.

The next point with which I want to deal is anonymity, because here again I think that the Group in its Report—I shall not go into this matter at great length—worked entirely upon the assumption that the woman and her reputation and background were liable to be the subject of attack. However, there is no branch of the law, no class of case, where it is so easy for a woman to make an allegation of this kind and to make it against a professional man. It is men, too, who require protection of their reputations against baseless allegations of rape, which frequently occur. If we in this House were to ask the Metropolitan Police for the figures on how many allegations of rape there were in the course of a year as against the number of cases actually prosecuted for rape, all cases in which the woman was willing to give evidence, I think we should find that over four times as many allegations never come to the light of day. That is irrespective of the fact that the woman may wish to continue with the allegation.

The fact is that a great many allegations of these types are made. They may arise from a variety of causes—from acute jealousy or from morbid feelings through having been rejected, either by the person accused or by another man. There is no class of case in which one has to be more careful to ensure that there is not only a fair and proper allegation of rape by the complainant but that there is some proper corroboration to be found in the case generally presented, because in no way can one derogate from the basic principle of our law that a person has to be found guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; and if, therefore, there is a doubt, it must be resolved in favour of the accused.

That is why I believe that the basic question of giving protection to both parties, and more particularly to the complainant, by enabling them to give their evidence in such a manner that the hearing is fully and properly conducted, requires that there is no undue publicity in the Press or the media, and that this is right.

How has that come about? It has come about in this way. Unfortunately nowadays, rapportage, as it was understood by the Press, no longer exists. In the days immediately before the war, in 1938–39, we had rapportage, a whole trial being fully reported over four or five pages daily of the newspapers of that time. The questions in examination and cross-examination were fully reported, and the public followed a case right through. They read a case of real interest. It was for that reason that the great leaders of the Bar in those days, such as Sir Patrick Hastings and Sir Norman Birkett, were so well known. Today that does not happen. No one does rapport-age today. The News of the World does not report trials properly or in full. It merely picks out the salacious parts which it thinks will titillate the appetites of the public. That is a matter of policy for the News of the World. I am not criticising the policy. I am stating it as a fact.

The real essence, therefore, is this, it is because today the media, in particular the newspapers which are handling that type of commercial ware, want to use the succulent bits of the trials, in relation to the woman's character and reputation, that she does not want to go into the witness box, because in any event, even if there is a conviction for rape, she may still find herself being harmfully affected by the advertisement that has taken place.

Therefore, it seems to me that it is quite right to do this. Should it be done in every case? I should have thought that it may well be that this particular clause on anonymity should give rather more discretion to the judge to decide whether or not it is a proper case, rather than the way in which it is set out at present. However, I make no great point of that because I am firmly in favour of the principle that we should extend anonymity in that class of case.

However, if we do that, I do not believe that we should allow any reporting of matters concerning the accused person or his name until the conclusion of the case. While I recognise that in most cases if the accused person were acquitted he would not wish his name to be published, I venture to point out that he might desire to have his name published, because if it was a local case he might well want the fact that he was acquitted to be published in the local Press widely. Word might well have got around, particularly about a professional man, if he was charged with rape, and people would want to know the outcome. Therefore, he should have the opportunity both ways, of his name either being withheld or being disclosed at his wish.

I turn from the aspect of anonymity to the earlier matters. Here we come to matters of very great moment. Clause 2 is taken almost entirely from the Heilbron Report. As the Minister has pointed out, this clause depends upon whether one accepts the premises contained in paragraphs 134 and 137 of the Report. I do not believe for a moment that this is acceptable. I do not believe that it is acceptable to the public, and it is certainly not acceptable to me.

Paragraph 134 of the Report states:

"We think that questions and evidence as to the associations of the complainant with the accused will, in general, be regarded as relevant to the issues involved in a trial for rape."

That must be so, and I agree. The paragraph continues:

we think that in general the previous sexual history of the complainant with other men (including general evidence of bad reputation) ought not to be introduced."

I pause there. What that means is as simple as this, and it is carried into the Bill. It means that if a girl is a prostitute or is well known to associate absolutely regularly in the loosest possible manner, this is to be treated normally as totally irrelevant. However, in a very large number of cases this is of the utmost relevance. In the endeavour to try in the clause to set out those circumstances in which it will be relevant, the sponsors of the Bill have failed to do so in any way that is satisfactory at all. I shall instance how and why that is so in a moment.

Paragraph 137 states:

"We therefore recommend that the trial Judge's discretion to admit such evidence should be guided by, and based on, principles set out in legislation. This should permit the Judge to admit cross-examination and allow evidence in rebuttal dealing with the complainant's previous sexual history with persons other than the accused if the Judge is satisfied—
(a) that this evidence relates to behaviour on the part of the complainant"—

the girl-

"which was strikingly similar to her alleged behaviour on the occasion of, or in relation to, events immediately preceding, or following, the alleged offence; and
(b) that the degree of relevance of that evidence to issues arising in the trial is such that it would be unfair to the accused to exclude it."

That leaves the situation in an intolerable state of confusion. It is not one which a judge could direct clearly or one which a jury could understand. In a number of cases which I could cite it would have meant that the defendant would not have been able to put his case fairly, and, as a result, he would probably have been convicted.

Further, a defence counsel would not be able to say in advance that he would be able to establish the previous character and history or that it was similar behaviour, because he would not know it until he had undertaken the cross-examination.

I instance one case. The girl had been brought up in the island of Jamaica but was a white and English girl aged 19. She was the complainant of rape. She laid the complaint in rather curious circumstances. She was found with no clothes on in a garden in Notting Hill Gate by a neighbour who took her in, promptly rang the police and laid the complaint that she had been raped.

The circumstances were as follows. That evening she had been to a club in the Fulham area which was entirely the resort of coloured men for dancing. The men who went to that club were almost without exception coloured, mainly from the West Indies. There were a number of white girls there, most of whom—it was easy to establish—were living with the men concerned.

On leaving the premises the girl in question had returned with two coloured Jamaicans to her own flat, where she had invited them in to coffee and taken them into her own bedroom, where they had the coffee. The allegation was that she was afterwards stripped and raped. There was no suggestion that she had suffered any physical damage to her body. She said, as was true, that she had run out of the premises without clothes on after sex had concluded, taking with her only a doormat which was inside the premises. She had gone into the garden where she had been found by the neighbour.

Those were the circumstances of the case. The defence wanted to establish, first, all the matters that related to her background—was she a girl who had had previous sexual connection in Jamaica and thereafter with other coloured boys; was she a girl who had had sexual intercourse with coloured men in this country? As regards the dancing and the other events of the evening, the defence wanted to establish whether it was true that she had been taking drink and had been dancing in particularly amorous fashion with the two men at the club.

Under Clause 2, all those earlier matters would clearly be excluded. In the case in question, however, that cross-examination was pursued throughout. It was established in the event, with the girl herself breaking down, that she had had a number of sexual affairs with coloured men in Jamaica. She had then left Jamaica, come to England and been engaged to an English boy here but had broken off the engagement. She had become involved with and had been seen drinking with and dancing in very sexual postures with these two men at the club. Evidence was forthcoming on those matters.

The girl was in the end prepared to admit that when they got back to the flat she had gone so far as to kiss both men, but she maintained to the end that she had been raped. The second of the two men said that as regards the sex he had been in the other room and came into the bedroom and found that the girl had already been possessed by his friend and that she made certain objections to having sexual relations with him, but he thought that they were not very serious and in the circumstances he went through with it. He was later found guilty of an indecent, assault. The other man was acquitted.

The question is whether an attempt should be made in any way to limit the ambit of cross-examination as to the relevance of the issue—that is, whether the previous sexual history of the woman is directly relevant—and the other aspect which is separate, where one is cross-examining as to credit, as it is called—that is, cross-examining to establish whether the woman is speaking the truth. The only way, if at all, to impose such a limitation would be by putting it entirely in the discretion of the trial judge. It would be wholly wrong within the ambit of Clause 2 to apply any limitation if the matter was regarded by defence counsel as being relevant to the defence.

In the case I have instanced, if the woman had on previous occasions had sexual intercourse with coloured men and if she had gone to a night club which was entirely the resort of coloured men for dancing, those factors were directly relevant to the defence of consent which they put forward. Thus, those matters would be relevant on that issue.

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman say why? This will be an issue which will be discussed in Committee. On the facts that he gave, I should have thought that it was not of any relevance. Whether the girl had had intercourse with men on previous occasions was not relevant to whether she would say "Yes" or "No" on the occasion in question. The hon. and learned Gentleman asserts that one of the accused admitted that the girl in fact said "No". If she said that, it does not matter how many times she said "Yes" previously.

The difference was this. The case was opened and presented on the basis that this girl was an English girl who had been raped by two coloured boys and that she had been encouraged to take them to her flat and had there been raped by them. The case looked to be about as open and shut as any case could be.

The line for the defence was "That is not the picture at all. She is, in fact, a girl who wanted and had every intention of having sexual intercourse with one or both of the coloured men that evening." It was directly relevant to that to establish the girl's previous sexual disposition. First, was this a white girl, one who went with coloured men or not? Let us face it, most white girls do not go to bed with coloured men. So the first part was to establish that the girl had had sexual affairs with coloured men in Jamaica before she came to this country.

The second matter was to establish that when the girl went out that night she did not go out as an ordinary girl might go out—for dancing—but went out to a club used only by West Indians and there associated with girls who were consorting and cohabiting with West Indians. That was directly relevant to the issue of consent. Whilst the girl was there at that club, she was seen with these two men necking and carrying on in amorous fashion with them. She then left the club with them at half-past one to return to her own flat.

All those facts, which dealt with the girl's previous sexual disposition, would be directly relevant. They would not have been relevant if she had had affairs with white men, although they might have been matters going to credit. Supposing that she had had three or four such affairs and was not a virgin, I am prepared to concede that that might not have been relevant to the defence.

Under Clause 2 of the Bill, cross-examination directed to establishing those facts could not have taken place, but in that trial those matters were ruled to be properly in order. If it had been ruled out, the accused could easily have been wrongly convicted.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that there are many statements which are out of date. I take issue with him on that. Let me refer to the most recent statement of the present position of the law, in the case of Krausz, reported in volume 57 of Criminal Appeal Reports. It states that it is the settled law that she who complains of rape or attempted rape can be cross-examined about, first, her reputation and moral character; second, sexual intercourse between herself and the defendant on other occasions; third, sexual intercourse between herself and other men; and that evidence can be called to contradict her on the first two but not on the third.

The Heilbron Report suggests that we throw out the first and the third of these points. It says that the general reputation and moral character are irrelevant. I entirely disagree. It says that sexual intercourse between the complainant and the defendant on other occasions is relevant. Obviously, that must be so. It says that sexual intercourse between the complainant and other men which she cannot rebut is always irrelevant. I say that it may be irrelevant in certain cases and that it should be left to the discretion of the judge but that there are cases where it is extremely relevant.

Indeed, a particular disposition may also be extremely relevant. If somebody is in some way "kinky", to use a word which has already been used in this debate, or has a disposition for particular types of sexual performance, these matters may be very relevant. The fact that somebody engages in that type of behaviour with another man and then is alleged to have engaged in precisely that type of "kinky" behaviour when she is the complainant in a case may be adduced to show that she has a disposition in that regard.

I concede that in the matter of credibility—that is to say, in the field of credit—of a woman who is being cross-examined to show that she is untruthful, I should like to see a wider discretion. The judges exercise it, and the House of Lords has power to do it if they think it right. Merely to say "Did you sleep with Tom Jones, or with some other man, on the night of such and such?" in order to establish that when she says "No" she is a liar, is wrong. However, I have not heard that done very much at the Bar recently. The tendency today is to move away from that approach, and judges are well able, within the ambit of the common law, to give protection.

It would perhaps be a good deal more important to women, if the complainant were given protection with regard to cross-examination on her reputation and character if we were not going to give them the anonymity. What causes the real trouble from the woman's point of view is that she gives her evidence having been, as she alleges, raped. In a case there may be little corroboration where the defendant is a man of hitherto impeccable character. There may have been some friendly and proper association between the two parties previously. There may be a case in which the jury really is in great difficulty to resolve its verdict, but, because it has got to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, it gives the verdict properly to the accused without in any sense impugning the reputation of the complainant. However, because of the Press and the media in general, her case has been presented and, as a result, when the man is found not guilty, by implication the jury holds the woman to be guilty of having made a false allegation of rape, which can be disastrously damaging to her reputation.

It is plain, therefore, that the right way to deal with this class of case is to provide the anonymity through the media. Then, only those who attend the trial know the position and it cannot have the same effect. I do not believe that it is the nature of cross-examination which is the worry. It is the after effects which have been the worry in that type of case.

To sum up, it seems clear that this is a Bill which it is quite right to introduce in the circumstances. It would be necessary to introduce some legal matter, I think, to deal with the question of anonymity. I had always hoped that on that issue the courts might have been able to lay down some principles, but they were unable to do so because the principles involved in the case really go outside the scope of the common law. Principles have clearly been laid down that the hearing of a case in camera is entirely limited to questions of security of the State and also with regard to other matters where there is a discretion in the civil field, but they are both related to domestic cases of matrimonials, the guardianship of children and matters of that kind. Therefore, it seems that judges are not in the position of treating this sort of case in the same way as they treat a case of blackmail.

I find it difficult to understand why blackmail should not be treated in the same manner as rape, and vice versa. I do not see the difference. In a case of blackmail one does not disclose the name of the person who has been blackmailed, in order to protect his reputation and in order to ensure, therefore, that he is not assailed. But the main reason is that the person who has been blackmailed will not come forward and give evidence that is required without that protection. So it is said also in the case of rape that the complainant in some instances is not willing to come forward and lay the complaint because she has not got the protection of her own reputation. Therefore, there seems to be a similar argument in these two classes of case.

If it is said, as it is, that judges are not able to exclude from publicity those cases where the complainant has made a charge of rape, it is certainly for this House to fill that lacuna, and a very important one it is. I agree that if we do that, it is perhaps an advantage to declare a definition so far as rape is concerned and, indeed, to make any modifications which may be necessary to ensure that it is clearly understood.

In so far as it will do these two things, I am in favour of this Bill. Most of all, however, I am in favour of the fact that it has given us the opportunity to try to take this subject into the field of common sense and reason, because it has been filled hitherto with a good deal of emotional clap-trap, and we ought to ensure that what we do is the right way of protecting the reputation of a woman and the sanctity of her body from attack, on the one side, and at the same time ensure proper justice to the person who is being tried. It is in that light entirely that we should proceed.

I would not be prepared to do anything at all about Clause 2. If we cannot dispose of Clause 2 in Committee, my inclination would be to demand that this matter be fought out, contested and dealt with thereafter. While we may be able to produce the necessary amendments which may be required to clarify the law in Clause 1 and to give to the judge a wider discretion on whether to publish, nevertheless I would hope that we shall have very grave thoughts before we limit powers of cross-examination particularly on matters which are regarded by the defence as relevant to the defence.

I have made a longer speech on this occasion than ever before. I am sorry that you, Mr. Speaker, should have been in the Chair on such an occasion, because I have always advocated the 10-minute speech and have pursued that idea at all times when others wished to speak. I have spoken at great length, but I am the last person to speak on the Bill and I waited until the last so that I could speak at length.

1.51 p.m.

I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) will accept it in the right spirit when I say that one does not always know what is going to happen next in this place. I forgive him for confusing me with the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bottomley), who formerly represented Rochester and Chatham and to whom I pay tribute. Those who gave us a common name sired uncommon Members of Parliament.

I welcome the Bill, but the debate has suffered slightly because there are no hon. Members opposed to it. They could have gone through the provisions in detail and focused our minds on defects. When we are in general support of a Bill of this kind, it is too easy to give it a push on its way, expecting to meet it in Committee, while losing the opportunity to raise matters of doubt, which obviously exist. The Minister indicated some of them and we are grateful to him for pointing them out, whether or not we agree with them.

The Heilbron Advisory Group took evidence from many interested organisations and individuals which would welcome the opportunity to help the Standing Committee to resolve some of the doubts. I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Members for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Corbett) and for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), and to the members of the Advisory Group for producing their Report fast and in a form that laymen can understand.

I turn to the case described by my hon. and learned Friend, involving a girl and two men from a club. It is right to emphasise that he was talking about an individual case, and that his comments would apply equally if the girl were a Young Liberal and the boys Young Communists. I am sure that he was not saying that this would happen only on ethnic grounds.

I experienced the same concern as others when the Morgan case came up. It was plain from those I talked to, partly during the by-election campaign last year, that people were concerned about the law relating to rape. I do not intend to go into the question of how many rape cases are brought to the attention of the police, and how many get to court or appear in the newspapers. Many cases of attempted or actual assault, which may or may not be rape, are not reported. There is room in the debate to put out the same call as that made a week or two ago about vandalism—that people who believe that they have suffered rape or indecent assault should report it, not only in their own interests but for the sake of the rest of the community. The authorities would then have more information and be better able to apprehend the guilty people. It is wrong that the painful impact of court proceedings should make people feel that they must put up with what has happened by themselves and that they cannot go for help to the authorities. That attitude puts more people at risk. The provisions for anonymity and for providing protection from cross-examination, however modified in Committee, will encourage more rape victims to notify the authorities.

I am concerned about the distinction between rape and indecent assault, because often there is not much difference in the suffering of the woman involved. I look forward to the Committee's examining whether or not the Bill's provisions could be extended to cover cases other than rape. For cases involving children we have in camera proceedings, which give total anonymity. I do not accept the argument that publicity always helps the community at large. We do not need to know the names in many cases. I recognise that there are opposite points of view, but I cannot see the argument for restricting the Bill's provisions to rape alone.

I wish to take up one point on the Advisory Group's recommendation about the balance between men and women on juries. The recommendation does not destroy the right of counsel to make peremptory challenges. If a large part of the jury has been decided, but the rest of the potential jurors are of the wrong gender to provide a reasonable balance, once members of the right sex have come forward peremptory challenges can be made against them, but not on the ground of sex alone.

There is the problem of corroboration, and the evidence that a woman might have to put forward to show that she declined to have sexual intercourse. An analogy with that situation could be the situation of the bank manager if someone threatens to "do over" his wife and children if he does not part with the keys to his bank. In that case the man experiences a threat of violence but no violence is committed. The problem of what the woman does when she is threatened with violence, and rape is offered to her as an alternative, is a difficult one to solve. It should be clear what is the right course of action for a girl or woman in that situation. I do not intend to offer a solution, but it is something that should be aired, so that people know how they should behave.

I congratulate the promoters of the Bill and all those who caused the Heilbron Group to be set up last year. I think that there are many other areas in which similar advisory groups with distinguished members could work with speed, making it possible for us, in a non-political way, to make many changes in laws and attitudes so that people can live a better life. I think that the provisions of the Bill will allow many to live a safer life.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 ( Committal of Bills).

Domestic Violence Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

2.1 p.m.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

At about this time on a Friday afternoon thousands of women are dreading the thought of Friday night. To them Friday night can often mean a night of strife with the man in the house. It can mean a night that ends in injury and battering, yet relatively few people, possibly not even the neighbours, may know about it. To many women it is something that they feel they should keep within the family, so they continue to suffer it. Some women are injured on week nights, and at any time, but Fridays and weekends, when father is at home, are times to be dreaded in many families.

Wife beating is as old as the hills. Unfortunately there are many who believe that it is right to beat their women and that any interference from outside is an unwarranted intrusion. This problem has now become one of general public concern. Centres for battered women began springing up three or more years ago and there are now over 40 women's aid centres. They are a godsend to women who are forced to leave their homes because of their husband's brutality.

Such centres provide only temporary shelter. There has been much discussion about them in the media. There has been discussion about how good they are and whether they are overcrowded. I have visited some centres, and on my last visit I was told that on that very day four families, consisting of four women and a large number of children—one woman had nine children—had turned up at the refuge and could not be accommodated. If people in that position had a stronger law to protect them they would probably be able to remain in their own homes.

The present position is that some women take refuge with relatives or friends. Their husbands can find them, and often do. They may well drag them back. Other women can find women's aid centres that have room for them. Yet others—this happens more often than not—continue to suffer the beatings and batterings. The Select Committee that investigated violence in marriage has produced an important Report with 28 far-reaching and helpful recommendations, which I hope the House will have an opportunity to debate and which I hope the Government will accept. Its recommendations include aid to establish further refuges, the setting up of family crisis centres, and the strengthening and changing of the law. It is the strengthening of the law with which the Bill is concerned.

The hon. Lady has mentioned aid centres, but will she tell the House why the ladies concerned have not been to the police courts to pursue their rights? The police courts offer protection if there has been persistent cruelty. The police courts used to be used in a great many cases.

If the hon. and learned Gentleman will bear with me, in dealing with the law as it is at present and how I think it should be improved I shall take in what he has said.

The law as it stands offers little protection. If a woman is assaulted by her husband she must first start divorce or separation proceedings, or bring assault charges, if she is to get an injunction to restrain him from beating her. The time when a woman usually needs an injunction is immediately after having been beaten. That will be the moment when she decides that she must get away from her husband, or that he must get away from her. At that time she is usually distraught, bruised and battered. The last thing that she will want to do in those emotional circumstances is to make a long-term decision about a divorce or separation that will affect the rest of her life. The prime purpose of many women at such a time is to ensure that they are not assaulted again. Sometimes a breathing space is needed. If a woman has to initiate divorce or separation proceedings merely to obtain an injunction, she may later feel that that step was undesirable, or too hasty.

Lawyers and court proceedings cost time and money. If a woman subsequently decides not to go ahead with her divorce or separation it is too easy for her lawyer to accuse her of wasting the energy, time, effort and money that have already been spent. In practice, lawyers are often reluctant to suggest the possibility of obtaining an injunction because of the lengthy process that is involved. Consequently, many people are unaware that it is a means of obtaining some legal protection.

A woman who is not married to the man who is battering her must necessarily initiate assault proceedings against him if she wishes to obtain an injunction. Life then becomes extremely complicated, because the man usually knows that the woman is pressing charges. He then becomes even more angry. The result is that often the man harasses and beats the woman once more.

We must not forget the children, whether they are the children of a marriage or a common law association. Children often come in for a battering themselves, and their protection is of prime importance. Many children carry the marks of both the physical and mental strife that has taken place in their homes. Even if a woman obtains an injunction by starting divorce or judicial separation in order technically to prevent her husband from beating her, the injunction is frequently breached. In that circumstance, an application must be made to commit the man to prison for contempt of court. The application must be served on him personally before the case can be heard. Even when the order to commit him to prison has been made, an arrest can be carried out only by the court bailiffs. Furthermore, they can arrest the man only within the boundaries of the court. If he moves outside those boundaries the paners have to be transferred to the court in the area in which he is thought to be.

One can imagine the substantial delay that all this procedure entails. Throughout that time the woman is vulnerable to further attacks. When there is a breach of the injunction and the police are called it is often beyond the powers of the police to help. It is a civil matter, and the police have no power to interfere unless the assault is sufficiently bad to allow them to bring a prosecution for grievous bodily harm. In practice, the police are reluctant to intervene in domestic situations.

Clause 1 seeks to give the battered person the right to obtain an injunction on a simple application, without divorce or separation proceedings, an injunction restraining the use of violence, or excluding the batterer from the home, or part of the home, if the judge considers that that is necessary for the woman's protection. This would save all the present delays. It would mean that she could apply for an injunction without the paraphernalia she must go through now, and it would save her from possible further injury.

Clause 2 will give the judge power to make an injunction to establish a power of arrest if he is satisfied that there has been an assault causing injury and that the situation is likely to continue. That power of arrest arises when he makes an injunction restraining the use of violence or ordering the husband to vacate or not to come within a specified distance of the home.

It will mean that the injunction will also be served on the local police, so that if the wife complains of battering again and her husband is in breach of an injunction or has broken the order, the police can arrest him. They will have the duty of finding a judge and of bringing the man before him to be dealt with. If he is not brought before the judge within 24 hours of the direction, he will be released. I am told that it is possible to see a judge at almost any time, but I should not like to see anybody in custody for longer than 24 hours before being brought before a court and charged.

Under the Matrimonial Homes Act 1967, if a married woman is evicted by her husband from a house in his name, she may obtain an order of court to allow her to re-enter the home. She can also obtain an order of the court to "regulate" their occupation—which means that he must stick to one part of the house and she to the other.

Clause 3 will permit a woman also to obtain an order for the husband to vacate the home altogether. This will give battered wives another remedy without starting divorce or judicial separation proceedings.

Clause 4 seeks to cover the situation in which a wife is co-owner or joint tenant of the property. It will enable her to protect her rights of occupation or to ask the court to regulate her husband's occupation. She can obtain the same orders under that Act as can a wife who has no legal interest in the house.

Clause 5 restricts the provisions of the Bill to England and Wales. Scottish law is so different from ours that it will have to be considered separately. I hope that it will be possible, when the Bill is enacted, for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to consider making an Order in Council extending its provisions to Northern Ireland. Since I chose this subject for a Bill I have received a large number of letters from women who live in Northern Ireland asking me why Northern Ireland cannot be included in the Bill and hoping that the Government will take some steps to deal with their problems.

I hope that many hon. and learned Members will give careful consideration to the Bill, even though they may feel it is not perfectly drafted. I am grateful for the expert help that I have received, particularly from the Lord Chancellor's Office. I hope that drafting matters can be put right in Committee, if the Bill is fortunate enough to reach that stage.

Since I first decided to introduce this Bill, I have been overwhelmed with letters from battered women. I have purposely worded the Bill to apply to both sexes. It is conceivable that a man can be battered, but I have not had one letter confirming this, although I have had many letters from women who have been battered. In general, I am sure that hon. Members will agree that the great majority of people who are battered are women.

In case anybody thinks that battering consists merely of the odd slap or punch, bad or degrading though that may be, I must tell the House that many of the acounts that I have received reveal a level of violence parallel only to that of torture.

One woman was picked up by a taxi driver at one o'clock in the morning walking the streets with her children. She had severe cuts to her face and shoulders. The taxi driver took her to a women's aid refuge near by. The woman had finally left home at that early hour in the morning because on every night in the last 10 years her husband had come home, begun to abuse her, and then beaten her brutally. She had had enough, but she did not know where to go. This is what prevents a woman leaving home in many of the cases when other say "Why does she not leave him?"

Another woman reported that twice a week she was locked in her bedroom while her husband was out drinking. This happened regularly. The husband would come home and accuse her of having broken out of the locked room, and would then kick and punch her. The final straw came when he kicked her hard in the stomach when she was six months' pregnant. On that occasion her parents came and took her to their home, where her baby was born prematurely a little while later.

During that woman's stay with her parents her husband continually harassed and terrified her. He telephoned, called through the letter box, smashed windows and generally made life miserable for the whole family. The police always said that they could not intervene. She was moved to a refuge for safety. The husband broke in there, too, and tried to attack her with a knife. He continued to harass the refuge until eventually she had to be moved. She has now been found a fiat, but is afraid to apply for divorce or separation in case her husband finds out where she is. Most of the women who are in this category are terrified of their husbands finding out where they have gone.

Children are often attacked, too. One woman suffered repeated brutality, and when her son of 10 went to her aid his father broke the boy's nose. I believe that the mental suffering and disturbance caused to children in these situations are extremely serious. We must take these matters carefully into account.

In another case the husband already had two previous convictions for assaulting his wife. During one attack, he tied a flex so tightly round her throat that her larynx was damaged and she had to be fed through a tube in hospital. The man was taken to court, fined £2 and told to behave himself. On a subsequent occasion the same man began to bash the children. The wife managed to lock the children into a room for their protection, and called the police. The police came, but said they could do nothing. As a reprisal against his wife for calling the police, the husband stuck a knitting needle through her arm. Her screams and those of the children finally brought a neighbour brave enough to break in and take her away.

There are many cases of sexual assault. The House has just spent some hours discussing legislation on the subject of rape. Many women have told me that they have been beaten into submission by their husbands, who arrive home drunk and demand what they consider to be their conjugal rights. Women in those circumstances consider themselves to have been raped in their own homes. Often, as a result, women become pregnant. People have said, "We cannot believe that her husband can be a batterer. Look how many children there are in the family. If she has become pregnant so many times, she must love him." One often finds that when a woman finally leaves home she is pregnant at the time she leaves. This may be an unwelcome accident, but she must put up with it in addition to everything else. The examples I can give on this score—and no doubt this applies to other hon Members—are endless.

There are some who suggest that batterers are ignorant people who know no better, and who should therefore be for-given. My researches show that batterers are to be found in a number of different jobs and professions and at a number of different income levels. I am told that when they get home, many husbands who are regarded as respectable professional people behave like savages and pigs. It goes across the board. I beg the House to believe that I am not exaggerating the problem. I am sure that hon Members will know of cases.

Some women have died as a result of the injuries they have received. Quite apart from the horrors of physical battering, it is monstrous that any human being should so degrade another human being. It denotes a sickness of mind. It says quite a lot that many women who have been treated in this way recognise that it is a sickness and, once they are away from danger, feel that their husbands should have help. It is no good saying that this has always happened and always will. We cannot hope to have a decent society unless we stop turning a blind eye and begin to give what aid the law can give to people who find themselves in this situation.

I know that the Law Commission has been considering these matters and I am grateful that thought is being given to the problem. I hope that the House will allow the Bill to be read a Second time, even though it may have drafting and legal imperfections. These can be discussed and ironed out in Committee. The Bill will be of real help to many people who are entitled to expect the law to protect them. It will not solve the problem. We shall need more refuges and a more general recognition that the problem exists. We shall need a change of attitudes towards women in general.

I must warmly thank all those who have helped me so readily and promptly to get the Bill this far. The National Women's Aid Federation—

I judge that the hon. Lady is coming to the end of her presentation. If so, before she finishes will she please say a word about the rôle of the police in this Bill? The current rôle of the law is small. What is being suggested is the placing of an additional burden on the police. I am sure that it would help if she could say a little about the further discussions she has had with the police since the Select Committee reported.

It is true that the Bill will give the police an extra duty. I believe that it will also help the police, because it will regularise the situation with which they are presently finding difficulty in coping. At the moment, when they are called to situations of domestic strife, although they may see immediately what the situation is they have to withdraw. It must cause them considerable embarrassment to see a woman being beaten and to have to say, "We are sorry, we cannot do anything about it. It is a matter between you and your husband or the man you are living with." The law places the police in an invidious position. It ought to be cleared up.

If the Bill becomes law the policeman, having satisfied himself that an assault situation exists in a home, will be able to arrest the batterer and take him back to the police station overnight. I hope that we shall have consultations with the police about this. It would be perfectly possible to receive representations. I believe that the police would welcome clarification of their powers and duties. At present many of them do not know what it is all about.

I would like warmly to thank those who have helped me. The National Women's Aid Federation has supplied me with a lot of evidence. Without this organisation many battered women would be much worse off. I have had help from lawyers and the Lord Chancellor's Office in drafting the Bill. I principally thank all those brave, battered women who have allowed me to call upon their bitter experiences to help others. I have heard with pleasure that the Government may be supporting the intentions of this Bill. I hope that hon. Members will allow it to receive a Second Reading and so give hope to many people.

2.26 p.m.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) on the coherent and succinct way in which she introduced the Second Reading of her Bill. I had the good fortune to serve on the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage, one of whose recommendations the hon. Lady has picked up and incorporated in the Bill. In passing, may I say how sad it is that the Government have not as yet found time to enable the House to debate the Select Committee's Report. We are having to deal in isolation with one of the Committee's recommendations without the opportunity of trying to redress some of the other ills we came across.

The hon. Lady's Bill has some connection with the Bill we have debated earlier today dealing with rape. I am bound to say that the violence that takes place within the context of the family is much worse than the violence we heard about today in connection with rape. My view, having served on the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage, is that man's inhumanity to man is rivalled only by man's inhumanity to wife. I pay tribute to the many ladies who gave evidence to the Select Committee, often at considerable personal risk in the event of their husbands discovering that they had done so. We were able to cross-examine them and find out what had gone wrong. As the hon. Lady has said, the price that many wives have paid is a heavy one. Murder has often been the result of incidents of violence in marriage.

One of the problems we came across on the Select Committee concerned the police, a subject touched on by the hon. Lady towards the end of her speech. It will be seen from reading the evidence given by the police to the Select Committee that they were less than enthusiastic about the extension of their rôle as proposed in the Bill. Their problem is that often when they have intervened in a family dispute and taken the side of the wife they have found subsequently that the woman has exercised the prerogative which all women have—namely, to change their minds—and they have been left out on a limb. In some cases they have been accused of interfering in a private family matter.

The hon. Lady will have to exercise her considerable charm in seeking to persuade the police that her Bill will help them, as she has implied. Discussions with them would be very much welcomed. They would enable the police to put their problems to her and would allow her to point out how they might be overcome through the Bill. There is traditional hostility by the police to intervening in what they see as a private family matter.

I have one suggestion to make in that context. Where the police intervene because a husband has battered his wife, or so it is alleged, it is important that the policeman should see whether there are any children in the family and look at them too. If that had been done in the past, some of the battered babies of which we have heard would have been identified earlier. This is an elementary precaution.

I am not a lawyer. My view, having served on the Select Committee, is that the legal protection afforded to wives who are at risk from their husbands is not adequate and needs streamlining. The message which came through to those of us who served on the Committee was that the procedure was too complicated and too slow and could be avoided.

There is a case for reform. Not being a lawyer, I am unable to say whether the reforms which have been suggested are right. Some of my hon. Friends who have the benefit of a legal background will be able to shed some light on that matter. But there is a grey area between the law and the family, and it is not clear to what extent the law can effectively intervene in a family matter. I agree with the hon. Lady that whether or not a woman wishes to divorce her husband is irrelevant to whether she wishes to stop being battered by him. I accept the need to separate the decision about divorce from the decision about an injunction.

I welcome the Bill as providing an opportunity to debate the inadequacy of the legal protection afforded to wives. I have some doubts whether the police will be able to play the rôle which the hon. Lady envisages, and I hope that she will have some discussions with them about that. I welcome her initiative in picking up one of the recommendations of the Select Committee on which I had the privilege to serve.

2.31 p.m.

I wish to give my warm support to the Bill, because it is urgently required. Many people who oppose moves of this kind have failed to understand the difficulties of the women concerned. I was delighted with the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) because her study of the problem and her practical experience of it, as a result of discussing it with the wives concerned, showed through her speech, a copy of which she kindly allowed me to see earlier.

The view of the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) about the police was accurate. Whenever we discuss with battered wives the problems that they face in going to the law, time and again we find that the attitude of the police presents a grave and serious difficulty. The hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) asked why the women in question do not go to the police and then to the courts. The simple answer is that the police are very unsympathetic. I am a warm supporter of the police, who, by and large, do an admirable job, but they are absolutely hopeless on the problem of battered wives because they are fearful of intervening in domestic disputes. They fail to understand that the problems of battered wives are not the same as domestic disputes. It is a question of violence in the home and the equivalent of mugging on the streets. The police and everybody else should regard violence in the home in exactly the same way as they regard violence elsewhere.

One of the best ways of helping women in this terrible dilemma is that outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking. She was right in saying that the delays involved in securing injunctions impose unbelievable frustrations and difficulties on the women concerned, because an application for an injunction only after divorce proceedings have begun exacerbates the difficulties between the parties. It is unfair to the women to demand that they should institute divorce proceedings before they can secure an injunction. The proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking will make the obtaining of an injunction easier and quicker.

I proposed a Bill which suggested that wives should retain possession of the home if violence had been proved against the man. I still believe that that would be one of the solutions. Instead of the man maintaining possession of the home and the woman and children being kicked out, the man should be kicked out and the woman and children should take possession. The Bill is a step forward in that direction.

I could say much more on this subject but I propose to close because my hon. and knowledgeable Friends wish to speak. The Government can help to find a solution to these problems by providing a network of sanctuaries for women. Fewer women will have to apply for injunctions if the Government provide such sanctuaries throughout the land. That is one step which could be taken to alleviate the anxieties of women. I hope that the House will give warm support to this admirable Bill.

2.35 p.m.

I welcome the Bill both as someone who has had to deal with women who have come to me for advice having been ill treated by their husbands and also as a member of the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage, on which the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) served. Battered women come to Members for help because there are very few people to whom they can turn. They ask for advice about where they can go. If one represents a town such as that which I represent which has no refuge for women affected in this way, it is difficult to give them advice and to help them. The Bill will help very much in this respect.

The Select Committee on Violence in Marriage found that the problem of battered wives was complex. We discovered that there were many and varied causes, and it would be difficult to generalise about the problems faced by women. We found that the problem is hidden to a large extent because many women do not want to admit that they have been ill treated by their husbands. For that reason, as well as many others, it was difficult to estimate how many women are affected by violence in the home.

It is true to say that all of us on the Select Committee were shocked by the evidence we heard. I am sure that hon. Members have been shocked by the cases mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson). The Select Committee was also surprised by the fact that many women would put up with treatment of this kind for many years. We heard examples of women who had been ill treated regularly over 10, 15 or even 20 years.

One of the first questions we asked ourselves was why the women put up with the treatment for so long. The answer to a large extent was that they had very little alternative. They did not know where they could go, and they did not know how to get out of the situation. They did not want to admit that they had made a mistake in marrying the man who had been violent to them or that their marriage had failed. They thought that perhaps people would not believe them, because often husbands who batter wives are nice, respectable people to others. That is another difficulty.

The two main problems are: to where can a woman go, and how can she be supported? The difficulty about accommodation is significant. Mention has been made of the importance of refuges and the need for more of them throughout the country. Many women go to refuges because of the lack of an alternative, but they are not the complete answer. They are only one means of dealing with a crisis situation. They are not a long-term solution.

The Select Committee found it difficult to make suggestions for remedies. We wanted to make recommendations which would help to break what we saw as the cycle of violence whereby the children of battering husbands and battered wives often became the victims of batterers themselves. We felt, however, that there were many things that the Government could do in the short term which would, if not solve the problem, alleviate the situation for many women. These are matters with which we were concerned in the short term and with which the Bill aims to deal.

In our Committee, we often found that women who went to solicitors were told that there was no help available. Some were not even told about the injunction procedure. Even those who were told and who took out injunctions against their husbands often found that they were an ineffective way of dealing with the problem. The present procedure is not adequate to give protection for women in this situation. Very often a woman obtains an injunction but her husband continues to be violent, and when the police are called they say that there is nothing they can do because they do not have the power to act on the injunction. I am pleased that this aspect is covered by the Bill.

The rôle of the police has already been mentioned in this debate, and it has been suggested that they might be reluctant to take on extra duties. I do not see it that way. I think that the proposals in the Bill will make the job of the police easier because they will be given a clearly defined and specific rôle. This has been one of their problems in trying to intervene in matrimonial disputes. They say that they cannot intervene in a domestic dispute, but if in future a woman has an injunction the police will have the power to intervene in the way some of them might like to do at present but feel that they would be treading on dangerous ground if they were to do so.

The grey area has also been mentioned in the debate, and it is suggested that it is difficult for the law to get involved in family life. But we must consider the situation of these women and the dangers to which they are subjected. It is wrong that a wife should have less protection from the violence of her husband than has any other member of the public.

We have frequently heard from women involved with these problems, including some who run hostels, that injunctions are not considered to be worth the paper on which they are written. The Bill's proposals give force to injunctions by giving a power of arrest at the time they are issued. This is a significant step forward. It is not the only way in which we can help women who are subjected to violence from their husbands, but it will help many women. For that reason I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

2.43 p.m.

The Bill will be of enormous value to many people. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) spoke earlier about his hon. Friends being knowledgeable on this subject. Few of us are knowledgeable in the personal and direct sense. The husbands of lady Members of Parliament are more likely to become Whip batterers than wife batterers. But all of us who have dealt with the problems of women or who have, like myself, been involved with the problems of one-parent families have realised the inadequacies of the law relating to battering. Most of my experience has been with families who have eventually split up and where a marriage has finally been terminated, often after long and anguished periods of violence.

The women and children involved have often become one-parent families after suffering more physical and emotional pain than they need have done because of the inadequacies of the law, their fear that they would not be able to obtain help and the violence to which they had been subjected in the interim period between deciding to leave home and legally sorting out the consequences of that decision.

I particularly welcome the provisions which separate the need for divorce proceedings from the granting of an injunction to a woman who has been subjected to violence. The linking of divorce proceedings and other matters has concerned me for a long time, particularly in the realm of housing and the difficulties that one-parent families have in securing a transfer of tenancy from local authorities. Many housing departments demand a decree nisi before they will transfer a tenancy to a wife who is leaving her husband. This is wrong, particularly for the woman who wants a divorce but for whom obtaining a decree takes a long time. Often she has left the matrimonial home, and we get the idiotic situation which I have seen in my constituency of a woman with four children sleeping in one bedroom of her parents' home for one and a half years while the husband maintains the tenancy of their old home.

This is one of the matters which the Select Committee considered. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree with our recommendation that custody of the matrimonial home should go with custody of the children.

I absolutely agree with that, but it should be de facto custody of the children—the person actually caring for them at the time—without prejudice to later proceedings which may take place as a result of divorce action.

A woman and her children may be living in overcrowded and totally unsatisfactory conditions waiting for a decree to be granted by the court. It is even worse for women with a religious or conscientious objection to divorce. They are effectively debarred from ever getting a tenancy transferred to them by one of the many authorities which stick rigidly to this rule. There should be a great deal more flexibility in the policies of housing departments in such instances, and the separation in the Bill of injunctions and divorce proceedings should lay the path for a much improved policy within housing departments.

Housing problems often represent a substantial proportion of the difficulties facing women who eventually become lone parents and they are often caused by the fact that the women have not been able to get adequate protection through the law at the time that the battering took place. They give up the homes to which they have a legal right and leave because they cannot enforce that right speedily or effectively.

The women are often in unfortunate housing situations, both in the physical sense and in the sense that they may have left the district in which they used to live and have thereby lost the residency qualification with the local council. If they move into another authority's area, it could take years to improve their housing circumstances which have arisen from the simple fear of violence which causes many women to flee from their homes.

Authorities of one sort or another say that they cannot interfere in domestic disputes. This is the answer which one gets not only from the police but from housing authorities when one asks why they demand evidence of divorce and final separation before they will take action. This is far too simple and glib a proposition for us to permit authorities to give in response to the problems of many thousands of families each year. No one pretends that either the police or a housing authority will have an easy task in trying to assess what is going on within a family or trying to assess whether a separation is temporary or permanent. But it cannot be too strongly emphasised that we are dealing here not with trivial matters, not with trivial violence, but with severe and sustained violence.

It would be a dereliction of our duty on our part in the House if we refused to legislate for circumstances within the family, for violence, for assaults and for abuse which, if they took place outside the family, would raise no such question in anyone's mind. I strongly support the Bill.

2.51 p.m.

My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) and the sponsors of the Bill are to be congratulated on the work they have done, before bringing the Bill to the House, to arouse public interest in a serious state of affairs which plainly must be examined and put right. I regard it as the purpose of the Second Reading debate on a Bill of this kind to continue that work, to underline the nature of the problem and to spread knowledge and interest among the general public. In the Standing Committee, where we shall have a line-by-line examination of the Bill, any legalistic arguments can be thrashed out. Our function here in the Chamber is to bring to the attention of the nation the reason why we insist that the Bill should become an Act of Parliament. We must, as Members of Parliament, make fully and properly known the position as we understand it to be.

Most Members of Parliament will have had personal experience of the distress which can be caused. I recall a case some years ago when, in the company of a constituent, I stayed up all night in a neighbourhood on the periphery of the constituency, seeking how best to resolve a situation in which a wife and her son were in fear. I have to tell the House that because of that night, from ten o'clock in the evening till six in the morning, a great tragedy took place.

First, I could not gain access to the house, since the law forbade it. I could only talk through the door to the husband inside, who was virtually berserk, hardly in a state to answer reasonable questions. His wife had been brutalised, and she was for the moment in the care of a neighbour. Her young boy, suffering all the emotional reaction from seeing his mother hurt, was in another house. Eventually I persuaded the man to open the door, and by two o'clock in the morning I had persuaded him to allow his wife and child to come back. He was exceptionally reasonable, and I was almost persuaded to return to my own home. But I said to my constituent who was with me that I thought we should wait outside for a while and see what happened.

Some two or three minutes later there was an unholy row within the house. I could hear people being knocked about, the door was opened, the wife was literally thrown out of the house and the son was thrown out after her. I had to take both her and her son elsewhere, and I eventually returned to the house. Then, by six o'clock, as I say, I gave up trying to persuade the man to respond.

But what happened thereafter? The son—he was an unfortunate boy, with a serious stammer—had enjoyed no love or real friendship, and I am sure that he had great difficulty in feeling that he was wanted at all. The following morning he walked down to the docks, took off his clothes, put them tidily by the quayside, and threw himself into the water. He was later pulled out dead. That woman had been brutalised, and her story is only one illustration of what goes on.

There is very little machinery to deal with domestic problems. There is very little machinery to deal with even the ordinary cases of battery as we understand them. Indeed, there is great difficulty in bringing in what services are available to bring peace into a household at the time when the problem actually occurs.

From my own experience, I believe that we should give the police full marks for trying in many ways to answer problems in people's homes in circumstances where they themselves do not have much by way of law either to protect them or to help them. The Bill will help to give the police the kind of power which, I am sure, they would like to have. The problem is one of implementation, and I am certain that this can be solved through our processes of discussion with the police.

I endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) about the services available. There is little co-operation and co-ordination between the services—the housing authority, the social services, the welfare services and the police—to help in cases of this kind.

I give these further illustrations to emphasise how important it is for public attention to be focused upon the problem. I have seen young married women, even before the birth of their first child, so battered that it has been a horrifying experience even to talk to them. They have reached a state of docility as a result of persistent brutality and fear, and on that count alone—the need to come to the rescue of young wives in such circumstances—the nation must recognise the need for legislation of this kind.

The matter does not, however, stop there. There are wives getting on in years who suffer similar distress. On many occasions I have recounted how, when I was a young man, I could walk down the Embankment in London and see men lying about the place—the drop-outs, men not belonging to society. Now, when I leave the House late at night, I am horrified to see women in this position, who have been thrown out of their homes and who show all the signs of having been brutalised. I am sure that there are many such stories.

The legal arguments can be dealt with in Committee. The Second Reading debate is the time to give the reasons for supporting the Bill. I believe that my hon. Friend is to be congratulated on bringing forward one of the most valuable pieces of social legislation of the last few years.

3.0 p.m.

I entirely understand the emotions behind the Bill and the desire to deal with the situations that arouse them. I am a little surprised that so many people are surprised at what they have discovered. Many of us have been closely aware of these matters for some time—not least the police, who have so far carried, and carried very well, the heavy burden of dealing with these difficulties and upon whom the Bill would impose the only additional burden put upon anybody. We can satisfy all our emotions in this way, but let us get down to brass tacks and see what we are asking others to do in dealing with things that stir such emotions in our breasts.

One might have thought from one part of the speech of the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) that the situation which has been so graphically described was due solely to the inadequacies of the law. I do not stand here to defend the law, although I am a lawyer. Law is made by this House, and we lawyers are the first to criticise it when it is inadequate and when the House makes bad law, as it often does, frequently with the best of intentions.

I make that point at the beginning because it is important. For goodness' sake let us stop fooling ourselves about the causes of these great social evils. To say that they are due to inadequacies in the law leads people to believe that all we have to do is remedy the law. Anyone who believes that is gravely misleading himself and the people.

The first recommendation of the Select Committee was that it should be immediately reappointed this Session. I do not think that even that has yet been done. I do not know of one of its 28 recommendations which has yet been implemented. The Committee obviously thought that a whole range of steps needed to be taken by a varied collection of people—local authorities, social workers and voluntary workers—and that each individual had a part to play. Until we allow ourselves to be more aware of the problem and more willing to take active steps to remedy it, it will remain with us.

The Bill is no more than the tiniest scratch on the surface. I had to say this last week too. Yes, let us do what we think is right, even if it grapples with only a small part of the problem, but let us not be carried away by our own emotions into leading people to believe that what we are doing will remedy these dreadful things overnight.

None of us assumed that the Bill would solve the problem overnight, but it is one small step to bring the enormity of the problem to public attention. This may lead to the required policies by social service and housing committees. The public might do more in this direction even than the House of Commons.

I am entirely in favour of all that, but we are discussing a Bill. I do not know whether, like me, the hon. Gentleman has heard all the debate, but one of his hon. Friends described the Bill as being of enormous value. It will not be. It will be of only marginal value.

People may be led to believe that the procedure for getting an injunction will be changed. In fact the difference made by the Bill in that respect will be minute. The hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson), on presenting the Bill, said that the important moment is when someone has been beaten up. One can get an injunction now from the county court speedily provided one knows how to go about it. That is true of everything in life. The procedure is usually available, but one has to know how to go about it. The Bill will do nothing to help that. It would help if we decided to set up crisis centres as the Committee recommended, which would be open for 24 hours a day, to which people could go for advice. However, the Bill will not make the slightest difference to the procedure for getting an injunction.

I draw hon. Members' attention to what is, perhaps, a Committee point. Clause 1 applies only to married women. Some women who are not married are in as much danger as those who are married. Under the clause, if an application were made to the county court for an injunction, the only difference would be that the person would not have to add the claim for 40 shillings damages on the particulars of claim, as is the case now.

Sometimes we are carried away by emotions, and lead people to believe that the remedies open to them are slow and complicated. 1 echo what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbittcr) said about alerting the public's conscience to what is happening. These occasions should also be used to inform the public about what already exists to help them. The public should be aware that for a long time the courts have been accustomed to granting injunctions at the shortest of notice if the correct procedures are used.

I have telephoned a judge on a Saturday afternoon to find out whether he is home and then gone to his home—and having given an undertaking to file a petition—and have obtained from him the necessary order without proceedings having even been started. The judge made an order for the protection of children. So informal were the proceedings that when the judge made the order he asked what he should write it on. There were no papers in the case—no writ, or anything else. These speedy procedures are available now. Far from the House suggesting that they are complicated, it should bring home to people the fact that they are simple and quick, provided that people know how to use them. That is not a problem for lawyers; it is a problem for us all. It could be solved by having crisis centres to which people could go for quick information. The difficulty is knowing who to ask at the time when advice is needed.

Clause 2 raises important issues which have received all too little attention so far. Apart from that clause the Bill does very little. I do not suggest that the House should not give the Bill a Second Reading, but I have grave misgivings about Clause 2. I hope that it will be examined closely in Committee and that the promoters will even consider omitting it altogether if they are satisfied that the issues that I shall raise are of substance. Clause 2 allows the court to give a power of arrest on the making of an injunction.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Hartlepool had a good word to say for the police, because no one else had. My goodness, they deserve it. However, I thought that the hon. Gentleman was quite wrong in saying that they would welcome this as clarification. We do not have time to read all the reports and the evidence. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has not had time to do that in this case. I have only had time to do it quite recently. However, if he looks at it he will find that he is a little wide of the mark. I shall shortly read a passage that ought to be in all of our minds in considering this matter.

The Bill is not clarifying anything and cannot be "making the task of the police easy" in the majority of cases because it does not alter their position at all in the cases in which there has not been an injunction, which is the vast majority of cases. Happily, the vast majority of people in Britain do obey an injunction once it has been made. In whatever field it may be, that is the experience. There is a hard core of people who will not do so, and in the matrimonial field, where feelings run highest, the percentage who do not obey is probably the highest, but it is still a very small percentage.

The police are not affected by the Bill at the pre-injunction stage. The only effect that the Bill has on their position is in terms of what happens after an injunction is made. They would then be used for the purpose of enforcing a civil order. That is something quite new and something which they view with grave misgivings, as I do.

It is said in the Report that Sir George Baker and Mr. Justice Arnold, who gave evidence before the Select Committee, welcomed the suggestion that there should be a power of arrest in the sort of circumstances about which we are talking. However, it should be remembered that their concern with it was on the question whether it would assist in the carrying out of the orders that they make. They were not directly concerned with the position of the police, that is a matter for the police. Concerning the courts, they made it very clear that they wanted to see every improvement that they could in the enforcement of their proceedings. Indeed, they put forward several other suggestions, which I think are more useful than this one which is giving these duties or powers, or whatever they are, to the police.

However, their support for the proposals enshrined in Clause 2 was subject to their view that they did not think they would be of any use outside London and the big conurbations. Secondly, they said that if this additional power or duty was to be given to the police, it must be given in very precise terms, and such terms as in fact did not increase their present task or duties. That was what those judges said in supporting the suggestion which is now enshrined in the clause.

The Solicitor-General gave evidence to the Select Committee. He was asked about this proposal. In a nutshell, his answer was that this was really a matter for the police, but that he could see obvious objections which ought to be raised to giving the police this extra duty.

Surely the important thing is to see what the police themselves said about it. I think that sometimes we in this House are pretty glib about expressing our feelings and then saying that someone else can do the necessary to put matters right. It is easy to say "Yes, something must be done—you do it." When one is considering putting extra duties on the police, who are already extended so greatly in our service, it really is important to have regard to their views and to recognise that they are the views of the people who know on the ground what it will mean when we do something here.

In a memorandum of evidence to the Select Committee the Metropolitan Police said:

"The Civil and the Criminal Law have always been separated for good reasons, and it would be wrong both constitutionally and practically to extend the Criminal Law to enable Police to exercise power to enforce orders made within the Civil Judisdiction of the Courts."

That is a major point of principle which has not been referred to so far today. It will have to be considered with great care in Committee. I give warning that we consider that this is a point of great importance, and I raise no objection to the Bill on Second Reading only because I hope that such points will be closely examined in Committee. The memorandum continued:

"The Police Force is already over-extended with the enforcement of the Criminal Law generally and preserving the Queen's Peace with all that entails."

All of us know that there is no word of exaggeration in that.

"To add the wide sphere of injunctions issued under a Matrimonial Judisdiction to their diverse responsibilities would place an intolerable strain on manpower resources and be to the detriment of safeguarding other members of the public."

That is the considered view of the Metropolitan Police, of especial importance as it seems clear from the evidence of Sir George Baker that it is in London that the great majority of the injunction cases arise.

Other groups of police officers also submitted memoranda and gave evidence to the Select Committee. The oral evidence was not word for word in accordance with that paragraph, but its import was precisely that.

It has been suggested that the police have found difficulties in discharging their present role. The Lord Chancellor's Department submitted a memorandum to the Select Committee saying that, by and large, that was not so. Of course the police have difficulties when they are called to the scene and there is a dispute between husband and wife about what happened. That is precisely why we must realise the difficulties the police will be in if the Bill is passed in its present form.

On the question of the assistance the police have to give now to court officers in enforcing orders or accompanying enforcement officers to ensure that there is no breach of the peace, in the manner in which they deal with proved assault cases, and the like, the evidence is that arrangements between the police and those who have to enforce orders work pretty well.

That should be placed on the record dearly, for two reasons. First, it is greatly to the credit of those involved that the present arrangements do work pretty well. Secondly, although we should draw attention to the real dangers we should not raise people's fears about dangers that do not exist.

Against that background, what is it that we are asking the police to do? Although I entirely understand and share the motives of the Member for Barking and her hon. Friends, having heard the debate today I wonder whether those who are advocating this measure appreciate exactly what the police would have to do, what practical tasks would be imposed on them, and what benefit would accrue to those whom we are trying to help.

The Bill stipulates that in certain circumstances a court may, when granting an injunction, attach thereto a power of arrest. The important provision is contained in Clause 2(2):

"A power of arrest attached to an order under subsection (1) above shall authorise any constable to arrest a person whom he reasonably suspects to have disobeyed the order by having committed an assault or by having entered the area or place specified in the order, as the case may be."

Then the police officer has to take him into custody. There is no question of bail, as there is in almost the whole range of criminal offences. If there were bail, it would defeat the whole object of the promoters of the Bill. We are talking of someone who has to be taken into custody and kept in custody. [Interruption.] I shall come to the matter of 24 hours in a moment, because that is not as easy as it may seem. He may be kept in custody for a maximum of 24 hours.

That sounds fine in theory, but I ask hon. Members to imagine themselves involved in the sort of scene that we have heard described today. Somebody has obviously been assaulted. She has broken teeth. As the law is the police officer will take the man into custody. One has very good reason to believe that if there is a doubt in the matter the officer will exercise his discretion in the cause of saving life and limb. In the case of the really nasty assault—and it does happen—this Bill will not really make any difference. Further, the new power of arrest will not arise unless there has already been an injunction, and that will still be in the minority of cases.

Where there has already been an injunction, if the injunction was on the ground of violence and the police officer went to the scene and found that the woman had two teeth knocked out, he would arrest the man anyway, as the law is. So let us not suppose that it would make a great deal of difference in that case. But what about the police officer who goes to the scene at 11 o'clock on a Saturday night and finds no marks to prove that the lady has been hit? He has got to listen to the stories from both sides. Then what is he supposed to do? What do the words" he reasonably suspects" mean? If the subsection said "if he reasonably believes that there had been an assault" one could understand a little better. That would at least give some indication of the level of evidence which had to be put before him. But "if he reasonably suspects" presents an impossible task for the police officer. It is a very indefinite proof.

I do not wish to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman's interesting discourse, but would not that be the sort of problem which a police officer very often finds in the process of "reasonably suspecting" in any type of case?

If it were, I do not know that that would further the argument that much. In matrimonial disputes or domestic disputes there may be all the more reason for exaggeration, for lying, for misunderstanding, and so on. It happens so often. We have heard stories today of some awful things that have happened. Those stories have all been based on the evidence from one side. When one practices in matrimonial cases one hears the evidence from one side, and then when one hears the rest of the story one finds that it is often entirely different.

We are putting the policeman right in the middle of these disputes, in the position where he may have to decide without any evidence of injuries—because if there are injuries he will not be in this difficulty—what he should do. And what a difficult decision it is. If he does not arrest somebody when he has got this power, there will be a complaint that he has not used the power which he is authorised to use. If he does arrest somebody and it turns out that he was wrong—or, indeed, if it does not turn out that he was wrong—there may well be a complaint against him. [Interruption.]

I hear observations made from a sedentary position. I wish that hon. Members, when we are talking about ideas, would put themselves in the position of the person who has got to carry out what we are just talking about. We should have only to put ourselves in that position to realise the very unattractive task which we would be placing upon police officers if this Bill were passed in its present form. Before we impose an extra task on people who already have, in many respects, an impossible task, we must be clear what its value would be and recognise the additional burden which it would place on those concerned. I doubt, from what I have heard in the debate, whether either of these aspects of the problem has been properly or fairly weighed by hon. Members who have spoken. Some people place too much value on the remedy which it is supposed will flow from these provisions and they overlook the fact that the extra duties to be put on the police are being imposed in the teeth of unequivocal opposition, strongly and plainly expressed.

Just before the hon. Member for Barking finished presenting her case, I intervened to ask whether there had been any further consultations with the police. Obviously there had not. The Select Committee reported in July last year, and now it is the middle of February—seven months later. I am surprised that a measure which is so contrary to the evidence of those most directly concerned with its implementation has been presented to the House without any further discussion with them.

Contrary to what the hon. and learned Gentleman may think, or to the impression that he may innocently be giving, I can assure him that consultations on Clause 2 are going on with the police.

That does not alter my position at all. If the hon. Gentleman had said that there had been consultation, and that the police had changed their minds and were happy about the situation, it would have been worth saying. The promoters have some responsibility for these things. I understood from the hon. Lady that there had been no discussions between the police and the promoters. How long have the consultations of which the hon. Gentleman speaks been going on? With whom did they take place? What views have been expressed? I would welcome that information from the Parliamentary Secretary, but from the look on his face I doubt whether I shall have that pleasure.

I hope that I have said enough to make it clear that we on the Opposition side of the House, while sharing the promoters' objectives, have grave misgivings about the machinery to be employed. I have said nothing about Clauses 1, 3 or 4, because they can be dealt with in Committee. Clause 2 is different, because it contains the major provision of the Bill, and raises questions of considerable concern.

I shall not recommend to my hon. Friends that the Bill should not have a Second Reading, but I want to make it clear to the promoters and the Government, who I think support the Bill, that it is only because we are prepared to see further time allowed for more consultations with the police, for agreements to be reached with them, if possible, and for a more detailed examination of Clause 2. We shall watch closely what happens in Committee in that respect. If our fears on those grounds are not allayed by Third Reading, we shall have to reconsider our position. Subject to that, we shall be glad to see these important matters given a careful and full examination in Committee.

3.31 p.m.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) on succeeding in presenting with great charm a Bill which deals essentially with ugly situations. She deserves complimenting because she is not a lawyer. I am complimenting her not because she is not a lawyer but on explaining concisely a Bill which deals with complicated legal matters. She deserves the plaudits of the House for fulfilling that difficult task.

I add my support to the aims of the Bill and I urge the House to give it a Second Reading. My hon. Friend has acknowledged that there are many points of detail which are not yet entirely right, but the principles have much to commend them. I am sure that any drafting imperfections can be dealt with in Committee.

My hon. Friend has told the House of the work of the Select Committee. The Bill will give effect to some of its recommendations for amendment of the law. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security explained on an earlier occasion the action which had been taken by the Government on other suggestions made by the Select Committee. I do not think I need elaborate on those aspects any further.

Is the Select Committee to be re-established?

I understand that it is hoped that the Select Committee will be re-established. Obviously, that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Lord President.

My hon. Friend described with great feeling various situations of domestic violence. I agree that those who commit such actions have within them a peculiar and special sort of sickness. Those at the receiving end clearly suffer a shattering, horrifying experience which may linger with them for years after the act, or successive acts, of violence. I do not think that I can expand on the way in which my hon. Friend has described such violence from the experiences which have been related to her.

The word "batter" does not appear in the Bill, and I am happy that it does not. It is a word that has sprung up. It is inelegant and inexact, but I agree that it is used to describe inelegant situations. I noted that hon. Members extended the word, and we have heard of batterers and batterees. We are in danger of innocently adding several words to the English language. I intend to refer to the acts that the House has in mind as acts of domestic violence, which is how they are described in the Bill.

I should not like the House to get the impression that a wife who has suffered a violent assault cannot obtain redress under the existing laws, because she can. I accept, however, that there are a number of unnecessary, daunting difficulties to overcome. The Bill will seek through its first two clauses to remove some of those difficulties.

It has already been said that acts of violence of the nature in question are not confined only to women. Husbands also suffer frequent and continuous acts of violence. The Bill is meant to cover husbands, wives and children, as my hon. Friend has acknowledged. Therefore, if in the course of my remarks I refer to "wife" I am using a form of shorthand, because I am equally concerned with violence done to husbands and children.

The Minister referred graphically to "daunting difficulties". What are the daunting difficulties, and how does Clause 1 remove any of them?

I did not think I attempted to describe the situation graphically, but the difficulties certainly are daunting to somebody who is not used to finding his or her way around the system. I shall come to that point a little later.

A wife who is the victim of violence does not know where to go to seek help—

Why not?

The hon. and learned Gentleman asks "Why not?" I shall explain. Some of my hon. Friends have cited evidence given to the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage.

The Minister will surely appreciate that every woman knows that she can go to the police court or to a probation officer. They are the normal channels open to the public. If she does not know that, she can certainly go to a local citizens' advice bureau and will be given advice within a matter of moments.

With great respect, the hon. and learned Gentleman knows his way around the courts—indeed, he has been practising in them for many years and has carried out that job very well indeed, as we all know. However, his familiarity with the courts and legal processes may not be shared by many of the women covered by the Bill. These women have been ill-treated and humiliated in a way that the hon. and learned Gentleman has never personally encountered. He knows the point I am making and I believe that he is being a little complacent.

If a woman who has suffered violence and who is not an articulate person wants to seek action through the courts, she must find somebody who can tell her what her remedies are and how to go about obtaining them. If she goes to a court office, she will be helped by being referred to a solicitor or by being given the appropriate forms to complete. The services of a solicitor will often be necessary.

I wish to stress that the Law Society is as anxious as are the Government that the availability of help should be widely publicised. The Law Society will shortly publish a referral list showing the categories of work undertaken by solicitors. These will be local lists available to all advice-giving agencies. I do not wish to leave out of account the citizens' advice bureaux, to which the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) referred. I know from the excellent bureau in my constituency how valuable and helpful is the advice it can give, particularly in guiding people to the right source of justice and providing an initial contact point.

Regrettably, one of the great difficulties for a woman who has suffered violence lies in getting into what might be called "the system". That is something that the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West must accept. I am satisfied that once a woman gets to a court and makes an application for an injunction, matters proceed with reasonable speed.

Under the existing law a woman can get proper protection. What the Bill seeks to do is to make that protection slightly easier to obtain—I do not over-stress that—and to make the protection greater. There are other recommendations by the Select Committee on initial help and advice. The Government and local authorities are together currently considering the problem. My concern and the concern of my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is that there should be a speedy process once the woman has got to court.

The most usual protection sought in the courts is an injunction. A woman can obtain this either in the county court or in the High Court. The county court is a local court and in the overwhelming number of cases is likely to be the most convenient, except in London, where nearly all applications are made to the Family Division at Somerset House. For administrative reasons this is more convenient. My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is conducting a survey of applications for urgent injunctions in these cases. A similar survey of harassed tenants applying for injunctions against their landlords has shown that no more than three hours is taken by courts from the time of the applicant arriving at the court office to the granting of an injunction. This is the case even when the application is made out of hours.

I ought to inform the House that arrangements exist throughout the country for a judge to be available at any hour of the day or night in an emergency situation, such as may be involved in a case of domestic violence. Judges are frequently called out in the early hours of the morning. A judge may grant an injunction or any other such order as may be necessary. This facility is used, and in these cases the law can act speedily. These arrangements exist, and it would be wrong to give a contrary impression.

The new provisions will not necessarily speed the granting of an injunction. Clause 1 of the Bill simplifies the process of application. At present, an injunction may be granted in a county court only if it is ancillary to a claim for some other relief made by the applicant—for instance, a claim for damages for assault or for a divorce decree. This means that an appropriate application for this main relief must be made. That is an added and unnecessary difficulty for a woman.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that under the existing law a woman can obtain an injunction in the High Court or elsewhere if she has been battered—to use the word which has been adopted today—and that that right remains separate and apart from the injunction to restrain violence?

I have already made that point, and the hon. and learned Gentleman has underlined it.

Rules of court permit an application for an injunction to be made in an emergency and for a promise to be made to file the papers applying for the main relief at a later date. In fact, the court does not make things as difficult as perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Barking suggested. However, often—and this is elementary—the husband or wife does not want damages and has not made up his or her mind about a divorce. The requirement, therefore, to lodge an application for relief is an unnecessary difficulty. If the hon. and learned Gentleman does not think it daunting, he can hardly disagree that it is unnecessary. Clause 1, therefore, does away with this requirement and allows an application in these circumstances to the county court for an injunction alone.

Perhaps I should explain simply what an injunction is. It is an order to the other party to stop doing some act—for example, being violent to his wife—and it may also order him to stay away from the house or part of the house in which the other party is living. In most cases the order of the court is obeyed; the terms of the injunction are obeyed. When that is not so—and perhaps in a minimum of cases it is not obeyed—the court must act to enforce its order. This leads to an obvious difficulty for the wife in cases of domestic violence. Breach of the terms of the injunction usually consists of a fresh attack or fresh series of attacks on the wife. She must then go back to the court and make an application for the husband to be brought before the court to show cause why he should not be punished by the court for breach of its order; and punishment in most cases is by committal to prison.

There is an obvious difficulty for the wife in making this application, and it is this difficulty that Clause 2 seeks to overcome. The Select Committee heard a great deal of evidence on the attitude of the police to domestic violence, and the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) dealt at great length with the role and position of the police. It is difficult—the difficulty should be acknowledged—for a police officer to draw the line between a criminal offence and a private matter concerning only a husband and his wife which often occurs in the confines of their private home.

I cannot say that the clause will make the job of the police easy; it will not. But the job of the police is not easy now; it never is. But the clause may well make it easier than it is. Under Clause 2 the police station near the home of the victim of domestic violence will know that an injunction has been granted. The police will know that a judge has decided that there was an assault in the past, and that a judge has decided that there is a likelihood of assaults in the future. Because of that, the injunction will include a power to the police to arrest. If a man assaults his wife again and breaches the terms of the injunction, it will be a much simpler task for the police to decide than it is now.

A police officer will have powers of arrest and detention given to him by a judge for that specific event. He will not face the difficult decision that he would have to make if he involved himself in the criminal law. In these cases a police officer will take an arrested man before a judge, who will decide what should be done with him. There is a time limit of 24 hours, because the House will agree that nobody should be kept in custody longer than is absolutely necessary without a right of hearing before a court.

I accept that Clause 2 will involve the police in matters of civil law and I freely acknowledge that the Government are still doubtful about giving these functions to the police in view of the other pressures on them. However, given the difficult situation which the clause seeks to cure, we are satisfied that it is appropriate to support the provisions in principle, though it may be necessary to make changes on points of detail in Committee.

Would not my hon. Friend agree that, whatever the reservations of the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) about introducing the police into this admittedly difficult area, the failure to put right the manifest abuse of violence in marriage leads to outbreaks of individual initiative such as that instanced by Mrs. Erin Pizzey when she set up the Chiswick refuge, to the great horror of many of our more staid citizens but to the intense relief of many unfortunate women?

I am sure my hon. Friend is right. It is important that people at the receiving end of domestic violence should feel that they have a comparatively easy and speedy remedy. At present they do not feel that, even though the remedy is there. The problem is frequently one of knowing how to get access to it and how to enforce one's rights.

Clauses 3 and 4 are concerned with the right of occupation of a matrimonial home and make changes to the scheme in the Matrimonial Homes Act 1967. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking explained their effect very fully and very well. It is a complicated matter, but her provisions are in accordance with the programme of reform of the law on matrimonial property undertaken by the Law Commission and are supported by the Lord Chancellor. They will provide additional powers to courts to do what is right between the parties in a matrimonial dispute, and, again, they carry out a recommendation of the Select Committee.

In effect, my hon. Friend's provision permit courts to exclude totally one party from the matrimonial home in circumstances in which there was obviously some doubt about the court's powers before. In Clause 4 powers are extended into areas not previously covered.

The hon. and learned Member for Southport mentioned the difficulties that the police will face as a result of these new powers. He knows the law better than I, but even under the existing law police may be called upon to arrest a person on a warrant from a High Court or county court judge and deliver the arrested person to the tipstaff or bailiff. The police also already serve summonses in civil cases in magistrates' courts.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that, although the police have powers and, from a technical point of view, they are able to intervene in certain situations, those powers carry great complexities which give rise to doubt in people's minds, and at the same time the police themselves have suspicions, fears and doubts about the propriety of intervening in family situations similar to those current throughout the whole of our society? Is it not urgent, therefore, for the police themselves to be able to know technically when they are able to help a woman in a distressing situation, and is it not at the same time essential that the House should state categorically that there are circumstances in which they should definitely intervene in domestic disputes?

My hon. Friend has graphically described the dilemma facing the police, and I cannot add to what she has said. I have already explained that, in my view—I am sure that it is the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking, too—the task of the police will be made slightly easier, though I should not like to go further than that.

In the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred, when the police are ordered on warrant to arrest, the decision to make the arrest has been taken by the judicial authority, whereas under the Bill the policeman will have to take the decision on when to arrest, with very little guidance about how and when to exercise that power.

He will have considerably more guidance than he has now—

More duties, but not more guidance.

—considerably more guidance than he has now. I think that I have dealt fully with all the provisions of the Bill—

I have an important question to put to the Minister. I understood him to say earlier that he favoured the re-establishment of the Select Committee. All the matters contained in the Bill save one are not matters which have been canvassed. Does the hon. Gentleman still favour the re-establishment of the Select Committee—and would that be the view of the Government—to consider these matters?

The re-establishment of the Select Committee is not a matter for me or for my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. It is for the Lord President of the Council and for the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that it would be quite improper for me to express an opinion on that.

The members of the Select Committee have been pressing the Leader of the House for its re-establishment and have received assurances that it will be established in the very near future to continue its studies of the problems of violence in marriage and, in particular, the circumstances of children as well as of women.

That is very helpful. My hon. Friend was a member of the Select Committee, and if it is set up again I hope that she will serve on it. She made an excellent contribution to the debate today, and her knowledge of these matters is well known.

This has been a most interesting debate. There has been general and overwhelming support for the principles of the Bill. Such criticism as there has been was directed to what I should call technicalities, drafting deficiencies and certain legal imperfections. In all the circumstances, I repeat what I said earlier: that the Government support the Bill and are quite satisfied that the House ought to give it a Second Reading. If it is given a Second Reading, such defects as there may be in its provisions could well be sorted out.

rose——

No.

The Question is——

Mr. Deputy Speaker, there is the important matte of the reappointment of the Select Committee—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

On a point of order. Would you mind explaining something to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I had always understood that, at the stroke of four o'clock, the Question was put and it was not possible for the Chair to call another speaker. Would you mind explaining what has happened? It was exactly four o'clock.

At four o'clock, the occupant of the Chair would say "Order. Debate to be resumed what day?" But if it is before four o'clock, any other hon. Member who wishes to take part in the debate is entitled to do so. The hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) rose to take part in the debate. It then reached four o'clock and I had no option but to interrupt the debate, which I did.

Further to the point of order. I understood, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you had started to say "The Question is". You had started to put the Question.

That is quite correct, but when another hon. Member rises he takes precedence over the putting of the Question before four o'clock.

Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We consider that it was four o'clock and that the only way that a point of order could have been taken was under the Division procedure, with the hon. Member seated and covered and all that performance. I think that you had started to put the Question.

Further to the point of order—

Order. Let me deal with this point of order. Let me get the situation straight. I know that a great deal of negotiation has been going on here and that the outcome has not been successful in one way or another. I have in front of me a timepiece which indicates the time. When it reaches four o'clock, I act by that piece of mechanism. What happened was that the Minister sat down before four o'clock. I was ready to put the Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time." Then the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West rose to take part in the debate before four o'clock. I had to call him, according to Standing Order. When it reached four o'clock, I adopted the procedure of saying that the debate must be resumed and asking what day.

On a point of order. Are the clocks in the Chamber and the clock in front of you synchronised, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

This matter was raised during this week's proceedings. The same thing happened with Mr. Speaker in the Chair and the question was raised with him as to which clock we were to go by. I go by the clock in front of me. Someone—it may have been Mr. Speaker himself—undertook to look at the question of providing the same red light in front of hon. Members so that they know exactly what time is shown to the occupant of the Chair.

On a point of order——

Further to the point of order. We are getting into a fraught situation. I do not for a moment maintain that my knowledge of these matters compares with yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I listened carefully to the chimes which are a preliminary to the striking of the hour of four o'clock. You were on your feet during the chimes. There was a matter of seconds only left to the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) to make a contribution to the debate. Therefore, in terms of practicality and common sense, he could not possible have had time even to say "How's your father?"

rose—

Order. We cannot have hon. Members challenging each other.

All I am saying, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is that you certainly gave me and some of my hon. Friends the impression that you were about to go into the ultimate procedure and put the Question. Therefore, much though I respect your chairmanship, I am totally at a loss to know how we could have reached this situation.

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not follow what I said. I think I have made it abundantly clear. Four o'clock is the zero hour at which I have to interrupt the debate. If it is before four o'clock, I must call hon. Members who rise to take part in the debate. That is precisely what I did.

rose——

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As these points of order are unfortunately taking time which might otherwise go to the Adjournment, and as this is the second occasion on which the House had had an unsatisfactory experience in this regard in recent days, is it not an excellent idea for the whole matter to be referred to the Select Committee on Procedure so that it can be sorted out?

I have already indicated to the House that a similar situation and dispute arose earlier this week and that an assurance was given that consideration would be given to the provision of a red light, which seems to be the light that we have here, so that hon. Members can see precisely the time.

rose——

Hon. Members can go on with points of order until Doomsday. They will take no time out of the Adjournment debate.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It might well be the case that the clock in front of you registers an earlier time than the two clocks within the view of hon. Members. That might be the simple explanation for the difficulties that we are in this afternoon. According to my observations, that appears to be the case.

It may be; I do not know. However, I carried out my duties according to the clock in front of me

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not a fact that hon. Members become confused because there are three clocks? We hear Big Ben chime and we see the clocks in front of us. However, you have a clock that we cannot see which determines the time when the Question is put.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I make one brief point?

I am not a conjuror and I cannot deal with three points of order at the same time. Let me make the position clear. I accept that there is great doubt as to whether the clock here shows the same time as the clocks that are visible to hon. Members. If that is the position, I give the assurance that, as this has happened twice in one week, the matter will be dealt with and will not arise again.

With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, chronologically Greenwich Mean Time, which is what we are operating under at present, is when, after the preliminary chimes of Big Ben, we hear the bang of the first of the four strokes that will follow. I suggest, therefore, that, as we are uniquely privileged in being able to hear Big Ben strike, your guidance should be exclusively from that source and not from any other.

Order. I should not like to adopt that method of determining what hour we have reached, because when I am sitting in the Chair I cannot hear Big Ben.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not a fact that you had risen to your feet and said "The Question is" and, therefore, you had commenced to put the Question? Will not the record show that that was the case? Is it not also the case that the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) was not rising to make a speech but was rising to make a point of order, which is not in order when you have said that the Question shall be put?

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct in her summary of the events. I rose to put the Question. It was not four o'clock. Another hon. Member rose to take part in the debate. I do not know whether he wanted to raise a point or order or make a speech, but it makes no difference.

I suggest to hon. Members that there is a difference over the question of time. We shall get nowhere with it. I have given my ruling as to what guided me. Let us leave it and see how we can avoid such a situation in the future.

Would it not be out of order, since we are talking in technicalities, for the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees Davies) to be on his feet when you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were on yours? Is it not a fact that he was technically—although very technically, I grant you—out of order in seeking to move the motion that he sought to move? Does not that make a total nonsense of the whole blessed business?

If we are going to argue, it could probably be argued that the Minister who was winding up the debate on behalf of the Government might have sat down just a couple of minutes or a few seconds before he did. That might have solved the whole problem.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As this House apparently operates to the second and not according to whether it is practicable for an hon. Member to make a contribution to the debate, may we know, to the second, at what time the hon. and learned Gentleman rose to his feet? How can we know how we are operating unless we know the exact time? Are you in a position, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to tell us exactly to the second the time that the hon. and learned Gentleman rose to his feet, in order to substantiate your ruling?

The position is this. I am not a time-keeper to the extent that I am watching it with a stop-watch. I have—[Interruption.] One moment. Hon. Members may, when the business of the House is finished, come around to the Chair and see where the clock is that governs my decisions as to the time. It is here available for everyone to see. We shall try to remedy this situation in view of the fact that it has occurred twice in one week.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are we, therefore, to understand that you cannot substantiate your ruling by giving, to the second—

Order. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw that remark. She can take my assurance that it was not four o'clock when the hon. and learned Gentleman rose. I ask the hon. Lady to withdraw that remark.

I do not understand what I am to withdraw, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because my point was a question. It was the question "What time was it?" I think that is a legitimate question. I do not understand—

Order. It was before four o'clock.

Chronically Sick And Dis Abled Persons (Amendment) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Food And Drugs (Control Of Food Premises) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Theatres Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Motor-Cycle Crash-Helmets (Religious Exemption) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 27th February.

Representation Of The People (Armed Forces) Bill

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [6th February].

Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Television Licensing (Establishments For The Deaf)Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 19th March.

Cruelty To Animals Act 1876 (Amendments) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Adjournment

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[ Mr. Thomas Cox.]

Prison Remands (Unconvicted Persons)

4.13 p.m.

I suppose that I must declare an interest, in view of the fact that in the middle of last year I spent six and a half weeks in Brixton Prison on remand, when bail was refused me on instructions to the Director of Public Prosecutions by the Attorney-General. At any time now my bail may be revoked and I could find myself back in a solitary cell in C wing in Brixton. It is not fanciful to suggest that I might even this very day be sent back.

It is well known that the police, when they have problems in making a case stick, harass the defendant, find reasons to suggest that he is breaking bail conditions and get him back inside. Under my bail conditions I have to report to the local police station between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Some time ago I was delayed at my home by an incoming telephone call and I reported at seven minutes past 10 a.m. The police in charge of my case rang my solicitor and told him that if I was late again I would be arrested and put back in Brixton.

On 15th January last there were 3,346 persons in prisons and remand centres who had been remanded to await trial. Apart from 1975, when the figure was 3,823, this is the highest number since the war. In 1960 and 1964, for example, the figures were only 1,156 and 1,200, respectively.

In the course of a year over 50,000 people are sent to prison on remand because bail has been refused. In 1974—the last year for which figures are available—a total of 51,422 persons were held for some time awaiting trial.

The incarceration of a large number of these citizens is both harsh and unnecessary. It ruins their lives and loses them their jobs, even if they are subsequently found innocent, and it costs the taxpayer vast sums of money to keep them detained. Bail should be granted automatically to all first offenders, apart from those accused of serious crimes of violence.

The police oppose the granting of bail in order to put the accused at a disadvantage in their police game of trying to get convictions by any means. As Lord Hailsham said when he was Lord Chancellor, very few accused persons have any intention of absconding and only a tiny percentage of those granted bail fail to appear for trial. When the police say, at the first court hearing of any case, that a defendant is likely to abscond, they are invariably lying. They want him put away so that they can intimidate possible prosecution witnesses and also attempt to break the man's spirit.

Arranging a defence is very difficult for a man in custody. Even so, in 1974, of the 51,422 prisoners kept in prison for some period awaiting trial, 2,101 were found not guilty or were discharged and 20,915 were convicted of such minor offences that they received no custodial sentence whatsover. So we have the position that out of 51,422 persons held in 1974 in custody without bail, a total of 23,016 were not sent back to prison after their trials. That proportion is 45 per cent. There is something seriously wrong with our bail system when over 20,000 persons are unnecessarily held in prison in this way.

This Adjournment debate is concerned with the terrible and degrading conditions for these people. The old, decrepit prisons in which they are incarcerated are grossly overcrowded. The so-called normal accommodation is quite inadequate, anyway, but this is exceeded in almost every place where unconvicted remandees are accommodated. In Brixton the normal accommodation is 649, but the prison population in September last was 968—50 per cent. overcrowding—and sometimes the figure goes well over the 1,000 mark.

In the remand centres of Brockhill, Low Newton, Risley. Thorp Arch, Ashford, Latchmere House and Winchester there is also gross overcrowding. At Cardiff, the population exceeds the normal accommodation by 100 per cent. Only one remand centre—that at Pucklechurch—has a population within the normal accommodation.

Most remandees are held at Brixton. The conditions there are brutal and brutalising. Men are mainly three to a tiny cell and are kept locked up—or banged up, in prison parlance—for 22½ hours every day. If they cannot get on with their cell mates, so much the worse for them. It is sheer hell for any man to be locked up in this inhuman way, but worse for an innocent man who is trying desperately to prepare a defence and is cut off from the outside world, apart from a possible daily visit lasting 15 minutes from a friend or member of the family. If the family live miles away he might not get a visit for weeks or months.

In C wing at Brixton, a miserable century-old building, there are now 289 unconvicted prisoners held in accommodation originally designed for only 100 prisoners. In this wing there are only eight toilets for those men, and frequently half of those toilets are out of order because of the inadequate plumbing system. The men can use them only when they are allowed out of their cells for one and a half hours out of 24 hours. The congestion that follows is appalling, as in the tiny toilet area, with the WCs in full view, are situated the only facilities for prisoners to wash their own eating utensils. These facilities are as primitive as they possibly could be, consisting of only one basin and a cold tap six inches off the stone floor.

For 22½ hours the prisoners are not allowed out of the cells for calls of nature. They must use chamber pots or buckets. When the cells are eventually opened, nearly 300 prisoners must rush to slop out their overfull chamber pots or buckets. The mess and the stench are disgusting.

Then the men line up for food, but there is no dining room or dining area. They must eat crouched on their bunks in their cells. The food is wholesome and surprisingly good, considering the weekly allowance of £2·60 per person per week, which is less than the £3·45 weekly spent on food for the Alsatian guard dogs. The communal tea served from a bucket is simply awful, but I am glad to see from a reply that I received this week that one reform since I was in prison is that prisoners are now allowed to make their own tea or coffee. They are grateful for that.

Once a fortnight prisoners are allowed to see an old film, shown in the prison chapel. Beyond that there is no recreation, apart from what the men can make for themselves cramped in their own cells. There is no official arrangement for association between cells, so that it is virtually impossible for prisoners to complete any game, such as chess or scrabble, that they might be playing with other men, except with their own cell mates.

There is supposed to be exercise for half an hour in the morning and after- noon, but this is held in a small yard which is disgustingly fouled by guard dogs. The exercise is often cut out when the weather is inclement, but it is never extended if the sun is shining and the men are suffocating from the heat in their cells.

The last meal for the day is served at 4 p.m. and the prisoners are locked up with this food until 7 o'clock the next morning.

It is degrading and cruel not to allow these men association during the evenings. They have nothing to do but sit or lie on their bunks for over 14 hours, and in C wing during most of the night period there is only one gaoler on duty for 300 men. He does not even have a key to the cells, so that in an emergency it takes a long time to let anyone out. I hate to think what would happen if the gaoler had a heart attack.

The Under-Secretary of State will argue that shortage of staff and money prevent improvements. Let me say to her—she is an intelligent woman—that that is poppycock. There are, in fact, too many staff. The proportion of warders to prisoners in British prisons is seven to 10, compared with five to 10 in South Australia, three to 10 in New South Wales and three and a half to 10 in the Federal Republic of Germany. The prison service in this country suffers from overmanning, as do most other areas of the Civil Service.

Of the total annual cost of £131 million for the prison service, staff costs absorb £77 million, or 59 per cent. The staff proportion could be cut by half, and the money saved could be used for other things. In this country we go overboard on security. Since the Mountbatten Report there has been a mania about security in British prisons. Providing tough secure conditions for all remandees is ridiculous when at most only 5 per cent. of them have any desire to attempt to escape. The 5 per cent. could be identified among the serious or previous offenders and kept in secure conditions. The rest of the remandees could be allowed much more freedom of association within the institution rather than, as now, being dealt with worse than caged animals.

The facilities for solicitors meeting clients are totally inadequate. In Brixton there are only 13 small rooms for 757 defendants awaiting trial, all of whom want to consult lawyers at some time. Sometimes solicitors are kept waiting for up to an hour for a room to be free. Naturally, they keep their visits to a minimum and tend to give Brixton clients less service than their other clients.

New accommodation is being built for family visitors, and we welcome that, but all contact will still have to be in a large crowded area with no privacy. Apart from the high security risk prisoners, why should not unconvicted men be allowed to meet their family and friends in a discreet and civilised atmosphere? Men held for more than a month should be allowed conjugal visits. In Brixton there are now 114 men awaiting trial held for more than three months, 45 held for more than six months and eight held for more than 12 months. Nearly half of them will be acquitted or receive no custodial sentence, but they have already paid a price in the loss of freedom which the community cannot repay. There is no cash compensation for wrongful arrest and imprisonment.

There is inadequate training for the gaolers, most of whom do not seem to understand or care that their charges are innocent until proved guilty. Some of the gaolers are the worst types of men, and treat their prisoners like dirt. It is terrible to see their vile, arrogant behaviour. They are only a minority, but their superiors seem too frightened to control them. I suppose that it is another example of the insidious syndicalism in our present-day society. A few of the gaolers are a credit to their profession, as they are sensible, firm and fair, and imbued with a deep sense of humanity. I was glad to meet some of them in Brixton. I remember three in particular, one of whom is still a personal friend.

I have no time to describe other aspects of the way in which remandees are held. There is the fact that their mail is censored if it is in English but not if it is in Gaelic, German, Cantonese or any other tongue. In our prisons we have many foreigners picked up on the streets for minor offences. I met two Algerians, alleged to have been loitering with intent, who were kept in Brixton at the British taxpayers' expense for two weeks.

I have no time to describe the situation of the young girls who, we read in The Times, are being sent to adult prisons because there are no adequate facilities for them to be held on remand. That is a shocking disgrace. These young girls, with other remandees, often find that their remand to prison to await trial is the beginning of an apprenticeship in crime.

The conditions for remand prisoners generally are squalid. They would have been no credit to the England of the eighteenth century, and in 1976 they are an outstanding disgrace.

The Under-Secretary is a woman of great humanity, and so is the Home Secretary. I hope that, in association with the reformers in the Prison Department in Whitehall, they will use their political muscle to bring out the best in the proposals now being considered for reforming the bail system and the conditions for remandees, and get something done about this shocking situation in the very near future.

4.30 p.m.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stonehouse) has raised a great many points. I shall try to deal with as many of them as time permits.

I assure my right hon. Friend that it is a cardinal principle of our system that a person is presumed innocent until a properly constituted court has found otherwise. No conceptual difficulty arises in the case of someone who, having been charged and brought before the court, is granted bail. The difficulty and the conflict first arise when a court decides on the facts presented to it that the accused should be remanded in custody. Whenever this happens it means that the court has balanced the liberty of the individual who has been found guilty of no offence against other important criteria—for example, the need to ensure that an accused person is duly brought to trial, the need to protect the public against the possibility of further serious offences, or the accused person interfering with the course of justice by, for instance, intimidating witnesses.

The bail decision, especially in the magistrates' courts, is of crucial importance, as it has a direct effect upon the numbers held on remand at any given time. The Report of the Home Office Working Party on Bail Procedures in Magistrates' Courts, which was published in 1974, made 40 detailed recommendations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department intends, with the leave of the House, to introduce legislation in due course. Meanwhile, some of the working party's recommendations are being implemented in advance of legislation.

The working party's first recommendation was that the number of people remanded in custody should be kept to the minimum compatible with the interests of justice. Its fourth recommendation was that when an unconvicted person is remanded or committed for trial there should be a presumption in favour of his being granted bail. It is intended that the legislation now being prepared should introduce that statutory presumption. My right hon. Friend has already expressed to the courts his hope that they will adopt that practice, pending the introduction of a statutory presumption. He has also commended to them the introduction of schemes to improve the quantity and quality of information which is available to the court at the time of the defendant's first appearance, so that it may be in the best possible position to come to a decision. He commended to them certain other views relating to sureties, bail hostels, the problem of no fixed abode, and out-patient facilities for the preparation of medical reports required by the courts.

I very much hope that the projected Bail Bill and the administrative guidance which has already been offered to the courts will help to reduce the rate of custodial remands, although this may not be straightforward arithmetic.

Since 1967 there has been a strong trend towards the more widespread use of bail in magistrates' courts. The proportion of people committed to Crown courts for trial on bail increased from 66 per cent. in 1967 to over 80 per cent. in 1974, the most recent full year for which statistics are available. The increase in the numbers of unconvicted persons held in custody may, therefore, be a reflection of an increase in crime rather than a measure of reluctance on the part of the courts to grant bail.

The number of unconvicted male prisoners in local prisons and remand centres continued to be high last year. This section of the population rose in the second half of 1974 to 3,446 in November. It continued to rise until in April 1975, it reached 3,645—a very high figure indeed. Thereafter, apart from the anticipated increase during August and September, the population declined to 3,290 at the end of November. This pattern reflected broadly the general movement in the size of the total prison population over the same period.

At peak periods there was considerable pressure upon all remand centres and remand wings of local prisons. I remind my right hon. Friend that, although he dealt with Brixton, I am trying to refer to prisons generally where there are remand prisoners. In London, as he pointed out, there is extreme overcrowding. In Brixton on 31st January 1976 the population was 1,049.

Shame!

As my right hon. Friend has said, the ordinary accommodation consists of 649 places. I emphasise that the prison service has major responsibilities in respect of the unconvicted prisoner. It has responsibility for his safe custody and production before the court, and for fulfilling the court's requests for reports or information. It also has responsibility for a person's well-being, in particular giving facilities for him to prepare his defence and to maintain his ties with family and friends. What is at issue, however, is the way in which the prison service is fulfilling these responsibilities and how far the presumption of innocence can dominate the treatment of the individual while he is in custody. He is not in prison for punishment or treatment.

If people on remand are presumed to be innocent and are not there for punishment, why are they locked up without any communication outside their cells from 4 p.m. to 7 a.m. next day?

I was coming to the conditions under which they are kept. Incidentally, the period concerned is 5 p.m. until the following morning. The right hon. Gentleman was wrong when he said that they had nothing to eat from 5 p.m. I am informed that they have a hot drink and a bun or something similar to eat during the evening.

I must correct the Minister. I know what goes on because I was there. Tea is served at 4 o'clock and then the cell doors are banged shut. Prisoners are then left on their own until six o'clock, when hot tea—evil stuff—is brought in. That is all they get.

I went into these matters carefully and I understand that a hot drink and something to eat is provided in the evening.

No.

I turn to the conditions under which prisoners are kept. It must be appreciated that they are required to be in custody. In other words, the requirement to keep a prisoner in safe custody necessarily makes restrictions inevitable. Even if there were no limitations on physical resources—which there definitely are—I accept that the conditions of normal life should be available to unconvicted prisoners so far as practicable and to the extent that they do not conflict with our duty to the court.

Let me deal with physical conditions. Most unconvicted adult prisoners are held before trial in local prisons which also hold sentenced prisoners serving short terms of imprisonment. I admit that local prisons are without exception old and, to a lesser or greater extent, overcrowded. They have serious drawbacks, whether of shortage of space, inadequate night sanitation or forbidding physical aspect. However, local prisons are near the courts they service; they have ready access to outside medical and other specialist services; and, because communications are relatively easy, it is possible for solicitors, probation officers and others to visit prisoners on remand or before sentence, and families in general do not have to make long journeys for visits.

Our strategy, therefore, is that adults on remand should continue to be housed in local prisons but that the local prisons themselves should be relieved of some of their sentenced population. This can come only from the provision of more places for sentenced prisoners or, in some cases, changes in the existing use of accommodation. Such developments must inevitably be partly dependent upon the overall constraints upon capital expenditure which my right hon. Friend must admit exist. What we can achieve will for the most part be gradual.

In addition to the local prisons, there are the special remand centres for young adults which began to be set up in the 1950s. Apart from the important aim of segregating the young from the adult and providing rather better physical facilities for visiting by solicitors, probation officers and relatives, they were intended to provide the courts with an improved service of assessment reports upon unsentenced persons which would be compiled by experienced staff, including medical staff.

As my right hon. Friend is aware, public expenditure, including that on new prison building and extensions of existing prisons, is currently under review. A White Paper describing the Government's policy for the current quinquennium will be published shortly.

A number of prison building projects are in progress at the moment. These include, in addition to the new remand centres at Norwich and Rochester, the development of a number of additional establishments for sentenced adult prisoners. These include a total of 1,749 places to be provided at Wymott in Lancashire, Highpoint in Suffolk and Acklington in Northumberland. Those places will help to further the strategy of removing from local prisons persons serving sentences of more than six months, and thus ease the overcrowding of these busy establishments.

The benefit to the remand population should include more staff to supervise activities outside cells and more space in which activities of a broadly educational or recreational nature can take place. There is also a continuous programme for upgrading or adding to the facilities at local prisons. I recently answered a Question on this matter tabled by the right hon. Gentleman—

The Question having been proposed after Four o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at seventeen minutes to Five o'clock.

Volume 905: debated on Friday 13 February 1976

House Of Commons

Prayers

New Writ

Orders Of The Day

Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill

Domestic Violence Bill

Chronically Sick And Dis Abled Persons (Amendment) Bill

Food And Drugs (Control Of Food Premises) Bill

Theatres Bill

Motor-Cycle Crash-Helmets (Religious Exemption) Bill

Representation Of The People (Armed Forces) Bill

Television Licensing (Establishments For The Deaf)Bill

Cruelty To Animals Act 1876 (Amendments) Bill

Adjournment

Prison Remands (Unconvicted Persons)