Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 233A on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill. Reference has just been made to experts. I am not as expert as my noble friend, and I may get into trouble because I am not going to use all the briefing that he has given me. Amendment 233A would exclude from Section 329 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 a constable in the course of his duty. That section is what noble Lords might know as the Tony Martin defence. It was enacted in response to the case of Tony Martin, who shot two intruders in his home thinking they were attempting a burglary. It provides that the court must give permission for an offender to bring a civil suit for an assault committed at the time and in the circumstances that the offender committed the act for which he was convicted. It provides the defendant with a defence to such proceedings provided that his action was not grossly disproportionate. The defendant must believe the offender was about to commit an offence, was in the course of committing one or had committed one and that his actions were necessary to defend himself or someone else, to protect or recover property, to prevent or stop the offence or to catch and secure the conviction of the offender. At the time that the section was being debated, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, said that the section, "““would strengthen the civil law to improve protection for victims of crime against civil claims for damages by offenders””." She also said: "““It benefits third parties who are not the direct victim of the offence, but who may have intervened to protect the victim or deter the criminal””.—[Official Report, 11/11/03; cols. 1307-08.]" That was the only indication of the intended use of the section by those who are not direct victims of the crime. In 2009, there was a case in the Court of Appeal: Anthony Adorian v The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In his judgment, Lord Justice Sedley said: "““There is nothing on the face of the section or in its shoulder-note which manifests an intention to afford the police a novel protection from claims by offenders for objectively unreasonable or unnecessarily violent arrests””." Only police defendants have invoked this section. Lord Justice Sedley went on to say: "““The consequences should not go unnoticed. In place of the principle painstakingly established in the course of two centuries and more, and fundamental to the civil rights enjoyed by the people of this country—that an arrest must be objectively justified and that no more force may be used in effecting it than is reasonably necessary—the section gives immunity from civil suits, not confined to those involving personal injury, to constables who make arrests on entirely unreasonable grounds, so long as they are not acting in bad faith, and accords them impunity for using all but grossly disproportionate force in so doing””." In summary, Section 329 has only ever been used by the police, and my noble friend tells me that it has led to a mismatch between civil and criminal proceedings with no equality of arms between police and private individuals. The current position does not recognise that the police are public officers of the state endowed with special powers and that as a corollary they have special obligations that Section 329 allows them to circumvent. My noble friend says that ordinary people may be given some leeway for honest and instinct overreactions when protecting or defending themselves or another from a crime but, on the other hand, a police officer trained in the use of force must be required to justify his or her actions objectively and to use no more force than is reasonably necessary. I had not appreciated until listening to the previous debate how neatly this followed on in some ways. My noble friend Lord Lester has tabled this amendment and as he is not able to be here this afternoon he asked me to move it.