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How our demons fuel witch-hunts
Crusade or witch-hunt?
Do you care to go to jail?
Care goes on trial
A
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What the BBC did not tell us
Crusade or witch-hunt?
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End this cruel injustice
The new injustices
Similar fact evidence
Trawling goes on trial
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Anonymity
for child abuse
suspects?
On Sunday 22 September
2002, early editions of the Observer carried a front-page story about
the Home Affairs Select Committee's inquiry into police trawling operations. The
article, by the paper's political editor Kamal Ahmed, revealed some
of the contents of an early draft of the committee's report. The report
will apparently call for new guidelines and express
concerns 'that there have been a number of miscarriages of justice in
cases based on evidence obtained by trawling'.
The story
which appeared in the Observer, however, focused on another
recommendation said to be contained in the draft - namely that
people who are accused of sexual offences should be granted anonymity
until they are convicted.
It would appear, however, that in order
to fit the story onto the front page, an Observer subeditor had
cut the last three paragraphs (which also disappeared from the online
version). In later editions of the paper the story was put on page 3 and
the paragraphs were restored. They read as follows:
'The
committee says it understands that
there is often a need for police to name suspects so that appeals for
information can be made public. It therefore suggests that there should be
a 'window' during which the person can be named, but that as soon as they
are charged their anonymity should be protected. The protection would
remain in place unless the person were convicted or a court order
overturned the anonymity clause. Although the committee was investigating
child abuse in particular, its recommendation on anonymity cut across all
sex offences.
'Home Office sources said that although they would
not rule out a change in the law, they were yet to be convinced of a need
for a change.
'"Identification
is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system," said one Whitehall
source. "There would have to be exceptional circumstances for us to turn
that on its head. The public must be able to see that justice is being
done."'
The missing paragraphs clearly make a big difference.
Although granting anonymity to suspects would address only some
of the injustices associated with trawling operations, such a
move would nevertheless be welcome. However, if the full Observer
report is accurate, the Home Affairs Committee is not currently
putting forward any such robust proposal. Instead it is proposing a
'window' when those accused can be named. The idea that people accused of
sexual offences, whose identity has already been made public, can
subsequently have their anomymity 'protected' is clearly a nonsense. By
that stage their anonymity will already have been destroyed along, in
some cases at least, with their reputation.
The reason why all
this is so worrying is that what the Observer report suggests, if
it is accurate, is that the Home Affairs Committee may - in an early
draft of its report at least - have started to compromise already in
anticipation of the hostile reaction truly
radical recommedations might provoke from relevant ministers and
other interested
parties.
A recent
leader in the
Spectator conveys extremely well the manner
in which the present government has chosen to intensify the
moral panic surrounding paedophilia for its own populist ends. 'By
granting official backing to the hysteria over paedophilia', it writes,
'[the government] has made it difficult for anyone accused of child abuse
to get a fair trial.' If the Home Affairs Committee is intimidated by the
resulting atmosphere into watering down its own more robust proposals
before they are even published, it will fail to convey the extent of
the perversion of justice which has resulted from trawling
operations. It will also fail in its principal aim - that of halting
the miscarriages of justice which such operations have brought
about.
It is therefore to be hoped that, if the
Observer story about the report's early draft is accurate,
later drafts of the report will become stronger rather than weaker.
The Home Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of Chris
Mullin, has been given on this occasion a task which, while not
difficult in itself, requires exceptional moral courage and strength of
purpose on the part of its members if it is to be discharged
properly. It remains to be seen whether it will prove equal to this
task.
…………………………………………………………
© Richard Webster, 2002
www.richardwebster.net
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