Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

While it is very easy to understand why the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, was moved to put down this amendment, it must be wrong to state in a statute that any and every reference to the possibility of there being a connection between sexual orientation and a propensity to commit child sex offences must be treated as a threat when in the particular circumstances it obviously may be nothing of the sort. Imagine a scenario of four people, perhaps academics, talking among themselves about the nature of paedophilia. One—let us assume entirely misguidedly— says there is evidence that paedophilia is more likely to be found among homosexuals. It is absurd to say that although the proposition was put forward in the most moderate terms and the proposal was based on an honest belief, the words must be treated as a threat when clearly they were nothing of the sort. In other words, it must be bad law to have a definition of a threat that covers things which clearly are not threats. Of course, I recognise that the offence requires intent but that is beside the point. We are talking here about the definition of threatening words or behaviour. We must not make bad law and wrongly define as a threat something that may be nothing of the sort. So I hope that we will not spend very long on this amendment, although I well understand the reason why it was put down and the very real mischief to which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, referred.