Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-27
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Hayward (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Wyld did earlier, I apologise for not being present at Second Reading. Like my noble friend, I had been diagnosed as a Covid sufferer only a few days beforehand and was unable to participate in the debate. Therefore, if I go slightly wider than one or two amendments, I hope the Committee recognises why In making my comments, first, I emphasise that what I say in no way minimises the impact that the failure to tackle rape and sexual assault is having on society, particularly women and young females. There is no doubt that there is a major problem. I think that all Members of this House, including me, are only too closely aware of cases of rape and sexual assault that have had a dramatic effect on the individuals concerned I take this opportunity to emphasise that this is not solely a women’s issue. This issue affects men in society as well, particularly gay men. I noticed that as I started that sentence the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was nodding; we are particularly conscious of the impact that sexual violence and rape have in the gay community as well as among females. To everybody, not just those in this House, I say this: the regularity with which I hear this issue being discussed as if it is a female-only issue causes me enormous concern and, I think, causes a lot of people hurt Reference has been made to rape cases and non-reporting and people being deterred from reporting. I know of one particular case, very close to me, in which somebody was subjected to an attempted rape. They chose not to report it, not because they would have had to disclose their mobile phone but because they took the view that the police’s response would be, "Well, you put yourself in that position in the first place". We have all heard that phrase in relation to women, but in this case, it applied to a man. It had no less effect, but that man took that decision under those circumstances On comments in relation to the police, in these debates, we always tend to refer to their failures. There are failures—there is no question about that—but we should also pay credit to the thousands of police across the country who handle this difficult subject incredibly well. Many of them are family men; they know what is going on. It is an incredibly difficult set of circumstances for them as well as for the individual concerned. More specifically on mobile communications, I made my maiden speech in the other place several decades ago on telecommunications. You can download everything off a phone, as long as it has not been specially hidden in some way or other, in a matter of minutes, certainly a matter of hours. You need to hold a phone for a long period of time only if you have serious criminals who know how to hide the contents of the entries on it. I implore people not to exaggerate the delays that one is talking about. We all use our phones as our livelihood, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, but downloading can be undertaken incredibly quickly In conclusion, I now want to take a different route in the conversation. In doing so, as I say, I do not underestimate the problems of society regarding sexual assault and rape victims. However, can the Minister clarify how this legislation or other legislation will deal with individuals who are falsely accused? There has been much discussion this evening about victims, but there are all too many such cases—not a substantial number, but there are many cases. For example, noble Lords can think of the number of people in this Palace who have been found not guilty when cases have gone to trial. What rights do those people who are falsely accused have in terms of seeking access to their accuser’s phone—or, rather, what rights do the police have in gaining access? It is all too easy for somebody to make a false accusation and then say they have lost their phone or delay handing it over. If you delay by 12 months, the records have disappeared in the vast majority of circumstances because the phone companies do not store them for more than that. There are a series of questions that need answering, and in the same way as we deal with genuine victims, we need to give consideration to those who are falsely accused and face many problems.