Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-16
Topic: Law and Crime
Dafydd Wynne Wigley (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): My Lords, Amendment 228D stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. This amendment increases the range of offences for which the Attorney-General has the power to refer a relevant lenient sentence to the Court of Appeal for review. The offences covered by the amendment are stalking, which my colleagues in the other place have been involved in seeking legislation on over the past two or three years—I am glad to see positive movement on this—multiple breaches of restraining orders, coercive control, incitement to support a terrorist organisation and the possession of indecent images of children. Those are the categories we refer to in the amendment The Criminal Justice Act 1988 gave the Attorney-General the power to refer unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal. The power was rightly restricted to certain serious offences, but since that time new legislation has been enacted for other grave matters. The time is right to reflect those changes and to address the concerns about individual cases of leniency by adding these new offences to the relevant schedule to the 1988 Act. The changes are not retrospective but would give the Attorney-General the power to refer such lenient cases in the future There have been a number of sentences in individual cases in the recent past involving the offences I have listed in the amendment which have been widely reported and have indeed caused public concern. Subsection (a) of the proposed new clause refers to stalking, which is dealt with in Section 4A of the Act, "involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress", and would have been relevant, had it been enacted, to the sentence of only three years for the stalker of Emily Maitlis. This seemed to be very lenient given that the behaviour had gone on for more than 20 years and despite many previous convictions. The stalker of Claire Waxman, again with numerous convictions, got three years and was back in the community after 18 months. Longer sentences would not only be just, they would also allow for longer perpetrator treatment while in custody Stalking victims constantly complain that restraining orders do not work because they are not enforced. The perpetrator in the Claire Waxman case breached them many times and other women currently working with Voice 4 Victims say the same. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it appears that the police do not investigate, while in other cases the courts hand out fines or warnings, yet the maximum sentence for a breach is five years. The ability to refer multiple breaches for re-examination by the Court of Appeal would facilitate the raising of the threshold Coercive control in a domestic situation became law in 2015. The behaviour causes massive damage to predominantly female victims and can last for years. Women may be controlled financially or in terms of their movements by being confined to their homes, and harassed and bullied. Too few prosecutions have been brought to court so far. The ability of the Attorney-General to refer individual cases will help to highlight the serious nature of such unacceptable behaviour Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 involves inciting support for a proscribed organisation. Earlier this year, the hate preacher Anjem Choudary was given three and a half years despite the fact that the court heard that he had encouraged at least 100 young people to turn to ISIS. He could be out in 20 months or less. The inclusion of the possession of indecent images of children follows an extraordinary case this summer where a male offender was given a suspended sentence in spite of having thousands of images on his devices, including 400 category A images, which are the most vile. His defence argued for a non-custodial sentence on the grounds that he wanted to start a family This amendment, which has been drafted by Voice 4 Victims, would update the Attorney-General’s powers and increase public confidence in the sentencing process. I beg to move.