UK Parliament / Open data

Violent Crime Reduction Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 25 October 2006. It occurred during Debate on bills on Violent Crime Reduction Bill.
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her introduction to happy slapping, and I congratulate her on her persistence in raising the issue again and on her diligence in following matters in another place. I will deal with this and other issues in turn. As the noble Baroness has explained, the amendment attempts to tackle the unsavoury practice of recording offences, often on a mobile phone,for personal gratification, and publishing those recordings on the internet. It is clear that the aim of the amendment is to create an offence to ensure that any person who participates in happy-slapping incidents can be prosecuted under the law. I think we all agree that incidents of happy slapping can be vicious and traumatic for the victim, and the Government condemn the practice entirely, as does everyone else. We are therefore naturally sympathetic to the aim of the amendment. However, we have already done quite a lot of work to investigate the issue, and we have sought views from other government departments and agencies since the noble Baroness first raised the issue quite properly in Committee. We have tried to focus on identifying whether there is a gap in the legislation and, although we sympathise with the objectives of the amendment, we remain sceptical that there is a need for a new offence of recording a criminal offence, as proposed in the amendment. The noble Baroness’s approach is not supported by ACPO or the CPS, who have told us that they know of no cases where prosecutions have failed or have not proceeded because of a gap in the law. There is already adequate criminal law to deal with anyone involved in an incident of happy slapping, and we are confident that any individual who is involved in such an incident in any way will be committing a criminal offence and will therefore be liable to be prosecuted for that offence. Under subsection (1) of the amendment, a person who recorded a violent offence should be criminally liable, either because they also committed the offence being filmed, or because they were involved in the planning of the offence and so would be open to charges of conspiracy, incitement, or aiding and abetting, or were involved in a joint enterprise to commit the offence. I reiterate—noble Lords will be already aware of this—that a person does not have to make physical contact with the victim to commit what is an extremely serious criminal offence. Aiding, abetting or inciting an offence can be subject to the same penalties as committing the offence, and therefore an individual who does this can be dealt with as robustly as those directly involved. Moreover, happy slapping that is an element of a violent offence should be taken into account as an aggravating factor of that offence under current sentencing guidelines. This type of offence would usually involve three factors: planning, offenders operating in groups or gangs, and additional degradation of the victim. These factors would apply to all those committing the offence, not only to the person doing the filming. Subsection (2) of the amendment relates to the newer offence of downloading on to the internet an audio or visual recording of a criminal offence. Under the current law, anyone who publishes material on the internet that is held to be obscene under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 is committing a criminal offence. It is also an offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 to transmit, by means of a public electronic communications network such as a mobile phone, images that are, "““grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character””." Material that is not caught by this legislation is widely available for the general public to see elsewhere, for example in the media and the entertainment industry, and is not subject to criminal law. In this sense, the issue under consideration goes far beyond images on the internet, and it would not be appropriate to legislate only against images on this medium. I am afraid that the amendment also has some drafting difficulties that could render it unworkable. First, the amendment would make it an offence to record any criminal offence. By not restricting this to violent offences, we could be criminalising the recording of anything from a minor traffic infringement to much more serious crimes. The amendment would also require there to be intention before an offence is committed. However, it is not clear whether the intention relates solely to the filming of the act in question or to the filming of a criminal offence. In other words, it is not clear whether the person must know that the act they are filming for gratification is in fact a criminal offence. Finally, the proposed offence would require the recording to be for the gratification of the individual or another person. Although there are currently 14 references to gratification in legislation, they all relate to sexual gratification. It is not clear what would be caught by the term ““gratification””. For example, it is not clear whether publishing such material for legitimate purposes—for example, as CCTV footage as part of the news or a ““Crimewatch””-type programme, many of which can be viewed on the internet—would be for personal gratification, and whether or not gratification in this sense would be legitimate. As noble Lords will be aware, many news and other television programmes or clips can now be viewed over the internet. Even if a defence along these lines were included, there would be significant evidential difficulties, for example in establishing whether the offence being uploaded was real or staged and, if staged, therefore not a criminal offence. It is true that many of us find certain material available on the internet distasteful. However, I should say for the record that the vast majority of the internet industry takes a responsible approach to the content that it hosts, both of its own volition and in co-operation with law enforcement and government agencies. Where the industry is advised that the content that it hosts contravenes legislation or its broader acceptable-use policy—many companies’ policies provide for them to remove material that will cause distress to an individual—they will readily remove it. Any individual who is concerned about the contents of a particular website can approach the relevant internet service provider to ask it to remove either the site or some of the material hosted on it. The Government accept the noble Baroness’s concerns and, as I said at the outset, are sympathetic to the aim of the amendment. However, we are not convinced that there is a gap in current legislation. We do, of course, want to ensure that the law is enforced fully, consistently and robustly, and we think that by working with ACPO, the CPS and the Sentencing Guidelines Council we can ensure that the police, prosecutors and sentencers have the proper guidance to enable them to deal appropriately with incidents of happy slapping. We also want to send out a clear message to children that incidents of happy slapping are abhorrent and will not be tolerated. We are therefore working with the Department for Education and Skills on how we can best educate young people, who are often the group exposed to incidents of happy slapping, about the seriousness of committing a criminal offence of assault and, indeed, about the seriousness of the penalties for crimes of this nature. I realise that this may be something of a disappointing response to the noble Baroness, although I have indicated our general support for what she is attempting to achieve; that is, to ensure that people are fully aware of the abhorrent nature of happy slapping and that the full force of the law can be used against them for perpetrating this appalling crime. The noble Baroness made some salient points about my right honourable friend Jack Straw and his comments in another place. I have now looked at what he said. I think that the Leader of another place was making an observation in a way designed to be helpful, to assist his honourable friend Iain Wright, the Member for Hartlepool, in finding a venue to hold a lengthier discussion on the issue of YouTube. I think he said that he hoped that the issue would be raised with an appropriate amendment. In a sense we have done that and the noble Baroness has been helpful in that regard. My right honourable friend simply encouraged his honourable friend to use the opportunity of perhaps having an amendment to the Bill and perhaps returning it to another place for there to be a discussion. I do not think that he made a commitment or asked Iain Wright to do anything. It was just one of those moments when Jack Straw was trying to be helpful, as he is on many occasions. I am grateful for the opportunity provided by the noble Baroness to discuss this issue further. I have tried to go through in detail the way we see the issue and how we feel it is best dealt with. In those terms, I hope that she has found my response useful.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
685 c1266-9 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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