It is no good the hon. Gentleman coming back; he does not care about any of these issues, and lots of people will be grateful to him for letting that cat out of the bag.
Before I come to the three new clauses, in fairness I should also refer to the Minister. On new clause 34 he trotted out the normal sort of Sir Humphrey guff about how it is an important area and we will keep it under review and all that kind of jazz, but I am not entirely sure—I shall have to look through the Sir Humphrey handbook later to find a translation. It may be that the Minister agrees with what I am saying but cannot be seen to be agreeing with that troublemaker Davies on the Back Benches, or perhaps he does not agree, but knows it is popular and does not want to be seen to disagree. Whichever way it is, we deserve a bit more clarity. He says that he will start to look at the issue: he is the Minister, for goodness’ sake. What has he been doing? He should be looking at these things. I know that he must spend a lot of time arranging for murderers and other dangerous criminals to walk out of our prisons, but in the time that he is not doing that perhaps he might want to look at some of the issues that I am talking about.
I am grateful for the support of my hon. Friend’s predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt), on these matters. If the current Minister wants to go even more left wing than his predecessor, we are in big trouble on this side of the House on criminal justice matters.
New clause 34, to which the Minister gave his Sir Humphrey blurb, is actually about squatting. This activity was criminalised in residential buildings in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012—it was one of the rare triumphs of that Act—and my new clause would extend the criminalisation from residential buildings to non-residential buildings and land. I was delighted to support the criminalisation of squatting, but because it applies only to residential properties, the problem has simply moved on to commercial property, by which I mean any property that is non-residential, including pubs, shops, restaurants and even schools—although the shadow Minister thinks that that is not important.
The now established principle that it is a criminal act to break into someone’s property and take it over without permission should apply whatever the property. It should make no difference whether it is a flat or a community centre. No one should have the right to enter someone else’s property without permission and stay there until evicted. At the time of the criminalisation of squatting in residential property, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate said:
“For too long squatters have had the justice system on the run and have caused homeowners untold misery in eviction, repair and clean-up costs. Not any more. Hard working homeowners need and deserve a justice system where their rights come first— this new offence will ensure the police and other agencies can take quick and decisive action to deal with the misery of squatting.”
I believe that should apply to everyone, not just home owners.
Squatters are using the fact that the law does not apply to commercial premises to take over pubs, for example. The door may have been slammed shut for squatters in residential properties, but it is wide open for non-residential premises and land. One example was the Duchy Arms in Kennington. Squatters realised that it had not been trading for a while and swooped in. They took over last summer and that small, friendly local pub was turned into the London Queer Social Centre overnight. It was overrun by those who cared nothing for what they damaged or how much upset and inconvenience they caused to others. They locked all the doors and put a sign on the front, delighting in the fact that the new law did not apply to them or the pub. It also said that if anyone entered the pub without their permission, they would be the ones guilty of a criminal offence. You really could not make it up. As they had not committed the offence of squatting in a residential building, they were not arrested by the police immediately and the pub was occupied for some time by people who had no regard for anyone or anything around them. When they were eventually evicted, the police had to go in and the premises were guarded for months by dogs to ensure there was no invasion by squatters. The clean-up costs for the owners will have been considerable and could have been avoided had the police been able to arrest the squatters on day one.
Another example that has come to my attention involves an office building owned by Kewal Investments Ltd. Having forced their way into the property, the squatters initially invited the director to agree to them staying there, saying that they would provide free security. The squatters were there from before Christmas until their eventual eviction, with bailiffs and police in attendance, months later. During their occupation, the squatters sought to try to gain entry to adjacent buildings owned by the same firm and the business had to spend money to protect its other properties as well as to seek an order of eviction through the courts.
When the business owners eventually gained entry, the property was in a state with waste everywhere. The squatters had used the back window as a rubbish chute and toilet, left graffiti all over the walls, put paint in a fire extinguisher and blocked the toilet. Those entering could barely get into the basement because of the smell. The director, who often used to give money to the homeless, has now been totally put off the idea. He feels let down by the system and has incurred substantial costs to gain access to his own building. On top of the considerable legal costs, he faces the cost and waste of time of simply restoring the building to its original state and ensuring that the squatters do not take it over again. I would have hoped that the Government—a party that should believe in people who own property—would want to do something about this instead of the Sir Humphrey words of the Minister. I suppose that that is better than the shadow Minister saying that he does not even care about the issue at all.
5.30 pm
New clause 35 is on another issue about which the shadow Minister should be ashamed of saying that he does not care. It would create a new offence of joint enterprise. I would have thought that the shadow Minister would realise what an important issue that is. The proposal would amend the Domestic Violence Crime
and Victims Act 2004 to extend the offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult to cover everyone, so that this could be used as an alternative to joint enterprise prosecutions in certain cases.
I want to start by paying tribute to Jean Taylor and the Families Fighting for Justice organisation, which has meant that I have been aware for some time of problems relating to the lack of convictions in cases where one would have thought that the principle of joint enterprise would help see justice done. There are a significant number of cases where killers are walking free because the law cannot touch them. I am keen to do something about that.
I have met some of the families of people who have been killed and who feel they have been denied justice, as those responsible are still free. Kevin Patrick Lavelle was murdered in Banbury in June 2004. I met the family of Mr Lavelle who not only have to live with the agony of losing their son, but face ongoing suffering as a result of nobody having been convicted of his murder. In the Court of Appeal judgement in 2011, Lord Justice Hooper said:
“Mr Lavelle was fatally injured in a fight that took place at ‘The Cricketers Arms’ public house in Middleton road, Banbury, Oxfordshire. He died in the early hours of 25 June 2004. He was 29 years old…It was common ground that the deceased died in the course of a fight involving him, Mr Kirk and some, or all, of the first three respondents.”
The coroner’s inquest had a verdict of unlawful killing. It seems clear to everyone that he was murdered, and murdered by one of the named people by that judge. Yet nobody has been successfully prosecuted for his murder. Unless something changes in the law, or some further evidence comes to light, this will continue, tragically, to be the case.
Andrew Jones was murdered in Liverpool in 2003. I have also met the family of Mr Jones and they are devastated by the lack of a conviction in his case. The Liverpool coroner concluded that only one person was responsible for killing Andrew, based on the evidence that he had heard. The coroner did not name that individual in court but the local paper did publicly name the killer and said that if it was not them, they should sue the paper. It seems that none of the people who were there on the night is prepared to say who threw the fatal punch, although obviously one of them knows it was them. It is likely that it was witnessed by at least one other. It cannot be right that their silence means that a killer is protected.
Donald Banfield was murdered in May 2001. The murder convictions of Mr Banfield’s wife and daughter were overturned in July last year. It was accepted by everyone, including the lawyers acting for the accused, and recorded in the judgment that Mr Banfield was murdered, his death was between 11 and 16 March 2001 and that he was murdered either by both his wife and daughter together, or by one of them. Yet these two women are free to walk around while this poor man is dead. It is outrageous that simply because neither will assist the prosecution with the case and say what really happened, there is nothing that can be done to bring one or both of them to justice.
I hope that an extension to section 5 will help to provide an additional mechanism to ensure that justice is done in cases such as these. I cannot see any good reason why the existing law that covers children and
vulnerable adults should not be extended to adult victims of similar crimes. The legal precedent appears to have been set already by the creation of the offence relating to children and vulnerable adults. Extending it to all could mean that some killers who are getting away with their crimes could be brought to justice. This would mean that fewer families would have to live with the fact that their loved ones are gone and that nobody has been held responsible for their deaths, even when everybody knows who was responsible.