Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. My former pupils occasionally used to say, "Miss, you’re a hard woman". I may be a hard woman but I do not think that I am as hard as to say that someone as stupid as the person whom the Minister described deserves all he gets. I remind the noble Lord that sad cases make bad law. The Minister is talking about a couple of very rare situations. I should not have thought that such a few cases justified overriding the principle that you do not in any way restrict the liberty of a fully competent adult who has not done anything wrong simply to protect him and for no other reason, especially given, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, has just reminded us, that the police have a whole spectrum of measures to protect witnesses. If someone is on bail, I am sure that certain conditions could be applied without the need for overriding the principle that a fully competent adult should not be restricted simply to protect them. I accept that what the Minister tells me about the particular case is true—I have no reason to doubt it—but I do not believe that a very few cases of that nature are sufficiently serious to override that important principle. That is why my noble friend and I have laid the amendments. We will consider what the noble Lord has said and see whether we can find any more hard cases of that nature—he may wish to write to me if he has a whole file full of them, but I am not sure that I would be convinced even then. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 128 withdrawn. Amendments 129 to 131 not moved.