Policing and Crime Bill

In moving Amendment 133, I will also speak to Amendments 134, 136, 137, 139, 140, 142, 142A, 143, 146 and 147, which are grouped with it. This group of amendments would amend Clause 34 by removing subsections (3) and (4) and make consequential amendments to Clauses 33, 35 and 40 to remove the ability of the court to require a respondent to do something rather than prevent them from doing something. The powers given to the courts by Clauses 33 to 35 are, as has been said, extremely open ended and would allow courts to impose requirements equivalent to a community sentence: including curfews, attending certain programmes, and presenting themselves in certain places on certain days—we have just heard the list. We believe that such sentences—they do amount to sentences—should not be imposed unless the person so restricted has obtained a criminal conviction. The fact that the stated purpose of these measures is to prevent violence, or the assistance or encouragement of violence, is not an adequate reason to impose such restrictions. These restrictions actually amount to a criminal sanction for the purposes of the ECHR. Instead of addressing the fundamental reasons why these young men—they are usually men—get involved with gangs, they are using a big stick by restricting their freedom. I can think of no better way of further alienating such young men from law-abiding society than this sort of restriction. In Clause 33(2), we see that the person to be so restricted must be someone who, ""the court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities … has engaged in, or has encouraged or assisted, gang-related violence."." Leaving aside for the moment the shortcomings of, ""on the balance of probabilities"—" we have just had a debate on that—when restricting someone’s liberty, the issue is that if someone has actually done these things, any community sentence that it is appropriate for the courts to impose should have been imposed at that point. It may be appropriate to look into anger management courses, picking up the person’s educational programme and getting them to learn to read and write so they can get a job, addressing alcohol or drug misuse problems, or anything of that sort. Those things, and not what the Government are proposing here, are the ways to address these problems. This is a simplistic and short-sighted way of addressing the problems, which is why we have laid these amendments. I beg to move.