HC Deb 13 December 1956 vol 562 cc784-92

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. God ber.]

11.30 p.m.

Mr. R. J. Mellish (Bermondsey)

I apologise to the House for detaining hon. Members for yet another half-hour. We can all agree that the matter which has just been discussed was important, and I do not regret the debate which we had. One of the great features of our Parliamentary democracy is that the ordinary Member is given an opportunity to raise what he or she may feel to be a matter of grave injustice to a constituent. Provided it can be shown that the Minister has a Ministerial responsibility in the matter, it becomes in order and you, Mr. Speaker, allow the Adjournment debate to take place.

The case which I want to raise tonight concerns a constituent of mine, but there is also a great principle involved. The story concerns a constituent whose name is John Williams. In May of this year he was accused of a crime of robbery with violence. He was accused of having committed this offence in the Sidcup area, was placed on an identity parade and was picked out on that identity parade by one of the victims of that attack. Later, he was charged with the crime. He was then taken to court and charged in the proper way. I should say at once that I am bringing no charges of negligence against the police in this matter. The fact is that, following an identification parade, he was properly charged at court and was sentenced by that court to three years' imprisonment.

This man appealed against that decision. During the period before the appeal the police found that there was another man who was very similar in appearance to my constituent. I admit this at once: they made it possible for the main witness in the case against my constituent to examine the photograph of the second man, with the consequence that the main witness in the case, upon whom the police hinged all their evidence, changed his mind and decided that my constituent was not the person who had committed the crime. I know the Joint Under-Secretary of State will agree that so far everything I have said about the case is perfectly accurate. At the Appeal Court, where the appeal was heard before Lord Chief Justice Goddard, my constituent was discharged. He was innocent of this crime.

I wrote to the Home Secretary as a consequence of that, asking whether he would consider the payment of compensation. I have received a reply from the Home Secretary. In the earlier part of it he deals with the details of the case which I have already outlined and towards the end he writes: Where a conviction is quashed through the operation of the ordinary appeal machinery it has never been the practice to pay compensation save where there are wholly exceptional circumstances such as evidence of negligence on the part of the police. I have been able to find no such evidence in the case of Williams and much as I regret that he should have suffered imprisonment as a result of an honest mistake in identity, I am afraid that cannot make any payment to him out of public funds. This is the story of a man charged with an offence which he did not commit. He was picked out quite wrongly on an identification parade and sent to prison.

Let me give details of the length of time he was in prison. The offence was committed on 17th May and he was charged later in that month. As soon as he was charged with this offence he lost his job. He did no work from the time he was charged to the time he was released from gaol. That was a period of six months. He was unable to earn a single penny throughout the six months, and, as his wages before the offence were approximately £12 a week, he has lost, as a consequence of a wrong charge—a charge admitted by the police to have been incorrect—over £300 in wages alone.

Apart from the anxiety of having to defend himself against a charge for an offence which he did not commit, there is the problem created in his own home. His wife has suffered a great deal, which is understandable, and I know it to be true, because she was in receipt only of National Assistance benefit while her husband was under this sentence, and she had to sell some of her furniture. Great hardship and distress have been caused as a result of an innocent man being accused of this crime.

As I said, I wrote to the Home Secretary asking for compensation for this man. He served 11 weeks in prison for a crime that he did not commit. No one at the Home Office said, "We are sorry about it." Apparently it was just a chance that this happened. Not only did he get no apology, but he got no compensation. British justice is famous throughout the world, and I am not suggesting in any way that the trial was other than properly conducted. But I should have thought that the Home Office would have been generous in matters of this sort.

I know what the Under-Secretary will say. He will say that if he were to pay money in this case—and he has the power so to do—this would set a precedent and would mean that all those wrongfully charged and imprisoned would be likely to make a claim. I suggest that that is not a bad precedent to set. If I were charged with an offence that I did not commit, and had to go to prison for some time, I think I should have every right to ask the Home Secretary for money in view of the pain and suffering caused and loss of wages sustained.

If the Under-Secretary is to argue that case here—and I have a strong feeling that he is—frankly. I do not think the majority of the British public would accept that as a valid argument. If I understand the communication sent to me by the Home Secretary, it means that that argument will be the burden of the Under-Secretary's reply.

It so happens that this man is still out of work. Obviously, his character has been badly smeared by this case and it has not been easy to find other employment. No doubt, that problem will soon be solved, but, nevertheless, hardship has been caused to this man. I was concerned some time ago with another case involving a constituent of mine, and on that occasion we were able to get the previous Home Secretary to pay the sum of £100. I was hoping that in this case we should at least have received a similar sum. I am not expecting the Under-Secretary to work out in detail how much the man has lost, but I do feel that some compensation should be paid in a case of this kind.

Without wishing to detain the House any further, I wish to give notice to the Under-Secretary that I shall be taking up with him and his Department the whole question of identity parades. I am shocked that large numbers of people have been placed on these parades and have been picked out as guilty persons. Of course, in many cases they never go to court because they are able to prove an alibi, but there can be no doubt that this system—although I have no alternative to suggest at the moment—is a dubious one.

The occurrence which I am discussing tonight has been created because somebody who may well have committed the crime is very similar in appearance to my constituent. That could happen to any of us. I ask the Under-Secretary to say that he will reconsider this affair, in which my constituent served 11 weeks in prison, had this threat hanging over him for six months, and was then sentenced to three years' imprisonment for an offence that he did not commit. I ask him to say that this is an ordeal which is worth the payment of compensation and that, in view of the circumstances, he will consider the matter again.

11.40 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. W. F. Deedes)

The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) has spoken very persuasively, as he usually does. He has given the facts of the case quite fairly, and the only small point of correction I should like to make is one of fact, as to the time spent by Williams actually in prison.

The relevant dates are these. He was arrested on 30th May, and in custody until 7th July, when he was committed for trial. That is a period of five-and-a-half weeks. He was on bail until his trial on 12th July, after which he was in custody as a convicted prisoner until 29th August, a period of seven weeks. He was then again released on bail pending the determination of his appeal. It is a very small point, but I just wanted to make that correction.

I should like to begin by saying something about the policy of the Government in connection with ex gratia payments. I recognise that the hon. Member for Bermondsey does not necessarily regard this as conclusive, but I think it is essential to understand it to get a clear view of this particular case.

As the hon. Member knows, the law imposes no obligation on the Executive to pay compensation to persons who have been acquitted either on trial or on appeal, or even to those who have been granted free pardons. If such a person feels he has grounds for compensation, the legal remedy is to proceed in the civil courts.

Payments are sometimes made by the Executive, but the making of ex gratia payments does not imply that the Government accept liability in these cases. The law does not provide for payment by the Executive of the costs of the defence, as the hon. Member for Bermondsey knows, when the court has made no order, nor does it provide for payment by the Executive of compensation for losses incurred by the accused as a result of prosecution or conviction.

It would not be practicable or reasonable—and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would wish it—to expect payments from public funds in every such case as a matter of course. In recent years, the Court of Criminal Appeal has quashed an average of 25 convictions a year. The average number of successful appellants to quarter sessions is about 320. The circumstances in quashing convictions on appeal are very diverse—for instance, production of new evidence, interpretation of difficult points of law, or procedural defects at the trial.

I would go so far as to say that if a successful appellant were entitled to compensation as a matter of course, which I do not think the hon. Gentleman would contend, it would be fair to add that it would be hard to say why the same principle should not be applied to acquitted defendants, which would open up an immensely wide field. In prosecutions for indictable offences alone there are 8,000 cases a year in which, for one reason or another, the defendant is acquitted or discharged.

The hon. Gentleman will say, as he has argued tonight, that payment in such cases is out of the question but that, surely, there is cause for making payment in exceptional cases. Obviously, he would suggest, some cases are more deserving than others, and there should be discrimination.

We hold it to be wrong that the Executive should intrude in judicial functions and make ex gratia payments in selected cases on the basis of views formed by the Executive as to the moral guilt or innocence of the accused. In the eyes of the law, every successful appellant is innocent, and for the Secretary of State to single out particular cases for special treatment might imply that he was applying a different standard of innocence from that applied by the court. To take a simple example, if payment is made to X and refused to Y, the public could draw the inference that although Y had "got away with it", so to speak, there is good reason to doubt his innocence.

Thus, the invariable policy of Secretaries of State—not only of my right hon. and gallant Friend, but of his predecessors—has been not to make ex gratia payments to acquitted defendants or successful appellants save in one circumstance, and that is where the mistaken prosecution or conviction has arisen through negligence on the part of the police or other public officials. Of course, in such cases, it is clearly reasonable that the State should make some recompense.

Mr. Mellish

With respect, the earlier case I mentioned was one where there was no negligence on the part of the police. What happened was that new evidence was obtained and presented to the Home Secretary, and, as a result, under the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, a new trial was ordered. In that new trial, the man was acquitted. He got compensation then, the point being, as I understood, that an innocent man had been in gaol for a crime which he did not commit. With respect, it is the same argument here—a man has been in gaol at least for the period of time mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, and he has had this matter hanging over him for much longer.

Mr. Deedes

Perhaps I should have mentioned the case, which I think the hon. Gentleman has in mind, in which action was taken by the then Home Secretary under Section 19. Action was taken in that case by referring it, under Section 19 of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, to the Court of Criminal Appeal.

The Government do not accept legal liability, but it is the practice to make an ex gratia payment in recognition of hardship which an innocent individual has suffered through failure on the part of public officials. Let us apply this general principle to this particular case. Was there negligence or misconduct by the police or other public officials?

From information which my right hon. and gallant Friend has, and which I have seen, there is nothing to suggest that. When the matter was investigated by the police there was a direct conflict of evidence; on the one hand, there was identification by one of the men who had been robbed, and, on the other, evidence of an alibi. In view of very positive identification by the victim of the attack—not by a passer-by—the police thought it right that the facts should go before the court. After hearing all the evidence, the jury were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams had committed the offence.

I do not think that any blame can be attached to anyone for that unhappy mistake. The identification was made in good faith and the police acted on it in good faith. As soon as a mistake was suspected, the police gave every facility for checking, and the witness, far from taking the easy way out, candidly admitted that he might have been mistaken. That, at least, indicates a certain amount of good faith there. If there was not negligence or misconduct—

Mr. Mellish

It is a terrifying thought that if the witness had not decided that he might have made a mistake my constituent might still have been in gaol.

Mr. Deedes

I think that the hon. Gentleman is aware of the point with which I am concerning myself—misconduct by the police or by public officials. That is the case I have to prove. If there was not negligence or misconduct, then this case does not fall within the restricted category outside of which it is the established policy of Secretaries of State not to make payments.

I take note of what the hon. Gentleman said about identity parades and his proposed action in respect of them. No doubt he will have noted what my right hon. and gallant Friend had to say about these parades on 25th October, when the subject was raised in the House. I do not propose, at this late hour, to enlarge on that subject—and I am sure the hon.

Gentleman will not expect me to do so—except to say that in this case there was no suggestion that the identity parade was not properly conducted so far as the police or other public officials were concerned.

I hope that I have shown why my right hon. and gallant Friend cannot accede to the request which has been made so persuasively by the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman said that no apology of any sort had been made to Williams. I sometimes feel that in these cases where compensation is refused apologies can sound hollow. I can only assure the hon. Gentleman that I express my sympathy towards Williams and regret that through no fault of his own he suffered 13 weeks in custody and had this anxiety suspended over him for five months. My expression of sympathy is certainly not intended to be hollow. It is sincerely expressed and sincerely felt.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes to Twelve o'clock.