Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 166B: 166B: After Clause 175, insert the following new Clause— ““Anti-social behaviour orders: reporting restrictions (1) The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (c. 37) is amended as follows. (2) Omit sections 1(10D) and (10E) (anti-social behaviour orders) and 1C(9C) (orders on conviction in criminal proceedings). (3) In subsection (9) of section 1C (orders on conviction in criminal proceedings), omit ““(10D), (10E)””. (4) The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 (c. 12) is amended as follows. (5) After section 49(2)(d) (restrictions on reports of proceedings in which children or young persons are concerned) insert— ““(e) any proceedings under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998””.”” The noble Lord said: The amendment deals with reporting restrictions for children. Recently I was engaged in a case of murder and the sentence was passed last Friday. The person concerned was under the age of 18 and the offence alleged was committed when he was 16. Throughout the whole of the proceedings—from his arrest, interrogation, charging, appearances in court, trial, all the evidence and conviction—at every stage his identity was protected by an order of the judge. It was only following sentencing on Friday that the judge, after due consideration, decided that it was in the public interest that his name should be released to the press. That was in the most serious case you can have. It was under Section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933—now 70 years old—which creates automatic reporting restrictions for children involved in criminal proceedings. The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 amended the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to provide that these reporting restrictions will not apply to children facing an ASBO upon conviction in criminal proceedings. Section 141 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 further erodes children’s privacy rights by also removing automatic reporting restrictions in respect of children facing proceedings for an alleged breach of an ASBO, allowing for them to be named and shamed. This naming and shaming was the product of the Home Officer under, I think, the tutelage of Mr Blunkett, who never seemed to be able to place in the framework of the criminal law his concern for anti-social behaviour that affected his constituents and his constituency. So for something which is down at the bottom of criminal behaviour, the 1933 protection has been removed. This means that children as young as 10 can be named and depicted in the media in a highly negative way—not only in local media but regionally and nationally—and their photographs can be displayed in local supermarkets and publicly on notice boards. It takes us back to the days of the stocks that children as young as 10 can have their photographs displayed in this way. What is the purpose of it? The Government will say, no doubt, that the only way in which you can make ASBOs work is to give them publicity, but naming and shaming violates children’s human rights. The report on the United Kingdom in 2005 by Alvaro Gil-Robles, who is the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, made shaming comments about the position in this country. He said that it is, "““entirely disproportionate to aggressively inform members of the community who have no knowledge of the offending behaviour and who are not affected by it of the application of ASBOs. It seems to me that they have no business and no need to know””." Article 40.2(vii) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is clear that children have a right to privacy at all stages of proceedings. Article 3 states that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all decision-making. The policy of naming and shaming vulnerable children has not yet been tested in our courts under the Human Rights Act but it is my contention that it amounts to a breach of Articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. ASBOs can apply to children who are not suffering from any particular problem, but a high proportion of children against whom they are made are suffering from learning difficulties and mental health problems, and yet they are named and shamed. When, in a Question in July 2005, Mr John McDonnell asked the Home Office Minister to give information on the physical and mental condition of people issued with an ASBO, the reply was: "““Information is not collected centrally about the characteristics of persons issued with an antisocial behaviour order””—[Official Report, Commons, 22/7/05; col. 1090W.]" There has been no research of which I am aware of the effects on children of naming and shaming; whether it reforms and rehabilitates or contributes to that 57 per cent of children subject to ASBOs who breach them, we just do not know. In many professional circles, there is a strong view that it is more likely to make matters worse and to prevent children overcoming anti-social behaviour by giving rise to vilification. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, pointed out earlier today, that can be regarded, perversely, as a badge of honour and can have a considerable negative effect. Some children are more aggressive if they have an order of that sort which marks them out of the crowd as being leaders in disruptive and objectionable behaviour. What is more, the wide publicity that is given to the children who are subject to these orders means that older people are showing increased fears of young people. A divide is opening up in society where older people regard children as, to use the expression that is current at the moment, ““feral””. It is all because of the emphasis that is placed on children as though they were rather less than human. At best, the public are encouraged to show little understanding of children’s difficulties, while, at worst, representations and publicity of this kind invite community hostility and vengeance. The naming and shaming of children subject to ASBOs was no doubt introduced as a ““tough”” gesture by this Government. I respectfully suggest that it is having precisely the opposite effect and that it should be removed. I beg to move.