CRIMINAL ASSAULTS ON CHILDREN (PRESS REPORTS) (Hansard, 14 December 1960)

§ Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu (Huddersfield, East)
The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State at the Home Office has been on the Government Front Bench throughout the afternoon, and if it were in my power to provide him with overtime I would gladly do so. I want to say how grateful I am to him for attending this debate at this late hour after a busy day, because I particularly want his help.
The matter I raise has some relation to Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, and the facts of the particular case from which I propose to generalise are as follows: a 15 year old—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. Member, but the title of the subject of which he has given notice does not help me to decide that there is Ministerial responsibility. He will understand my difficulties. He knows tie limitations of discussing legislation in these circumstances. I should be grateful for his help.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I am obliged. I do not propose to call on anybody to produce legislation on this subject. I want guidance from the Home Office, which has some responsibility for young persons in various capacities and has accepted responsibility, in some capacities, for the Press. I wonder if I might outline to you, Mr. Speaker, the details of a case for which I think the Home Office may be able to accept some degree of responsibility.

§ Mr. Speaker
Could the hon. Gentleman first of all tell me what he alleges is the Ministerial responsibility in relation to this matter? That is my difficulty. After that, he can flow on.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I shall not merely allege but assert that under the 1933 Act the Home Office has a broad responsibility in cases which are somewhat analogous to the one I propose to raise.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sorry to interrupt again. The difficulty is that I must know about Ministerial responsibility before I am able to allow the hon. Gentleman to raise the case.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
The Ministerial responsibility, as I understand it, is that under the Act magistrates are given power to request that the names of minors who appear in court shall not be published in the Press, and it is a case analogous to that, though not wholly in line with it, that I want to raise tonight and generalise from.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am being tiresome only in relation to my duties. At present I do not know that any Minister has any power to direct magistrates to exercise their power to request the Press not to publish names.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I am not sure what the technical phrase is, but the 1933 Act was one for which the Home Office was responsible in the House, and one of its provisions was that magistrates should have that power. No doubt, as the Home Office carried the Act through the House in 1933 it would accept responsibility for its working.

§ Mr. Speaker
Could the hon. Member think of another device, because I cannot be convinced by that one?

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I would give anything I could to think of another device, but I am not sure that I can. Would it help if I outlined the case? You could then decide, on the outline of the case, whether there was Ministerial responsibility.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am sorry. My duty obliges me to confine the hon. Member to some matter for which Ministerial responsibility exists. If by way of recital he could talk about the thing first, the object of the rules imposed on me would be defeated. I am afraid that I must persist in the matter.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
Perhaps I might suggest another point on which the Home Office has direct responsibility. This case arises from matter which was given by the police to the Press. The Home Office has a responsibility for the police in the Metropolitan area. I wonder whether by that device I might now introduce my subject.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not know whether the hon. Member is talking about some activity of the Metropolitan Police.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I am generalising about police activities, but it could be a particular case in the Metropolitan area, because I understand that, though I have been alerted by a particular issue that has arisen elsewhere than in the Metropolitan area, it is police practice to do that about which I am complaining.

§ Mr. Speaker
Metropolitan Police practice is one matter, but if it is other police practice, that does not help me.

§ Mr. Mallalieu
I will confine it to the Metropolitan Police.
There have been occasions when schoolgirls—I am thinking of one particular one—in the Metropolitan area have been criminally assaulted. Reports of these assaults have been given to the Press. In those reports the name and address of the child concerned has been given by the police to the Press, and the information has then been published.
The result of this publication has been that additional distress has been caused to the victim, to the parents, and to the relatives. I have in mind one instance where, as a result of such publication, people whom I can only describe as ghouls went to the house and made excuses for gaining entry, but were concerned only with staring at the victim.
Also, the name of the victim being published in the Press might lead to intimidation. Once the person who has committed the assault knows the name and address of his victim, he might very well go to that victim and say: "If you lay evidence against me I shall bash you", or words to that effect.
I believe that it is not normal Press practice to publish these names, even if the police afford the information. As a professional journalist I should certainly condemn the practice of publishing the information, and I hope that the House and the Home Secretary will also condemn it, but I am compelled to ask the Minister if he will give some guidance, or if possible some instruction, to those police forces, or that police force for which he has some responsibility, that in no circumstances will the Press 564 divulge the name and address of minors who are victims of these assaults.
That publication cannot possibly do any good. I know that in certain instances it has caused immense distress, and if the Minister of State were to state his view now, before the House, to the police force for which he has some responsibility, that it is not public policy that these names should be published, he would be doing a service if not to the victims of the past at least to those who may be victims in the future.

§ Mr. Donald Wade (Huddersfield, West)
I am glad of the opportunity to add a few words to the observations made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu). I can well understand the distress caused by criminal assaults both to the person assaulted and to the parents, where the assaulted person is a young child. I also appreciate the concern felt by other parents in the district where these incidents occur. I was going to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Home Secretary had some responsibility for making recommendations to the police outside the Metropolitan area, but if it is your Ruling that we must confine ourselves to the Metropolitan area, I will deal with the matter in general terms.
The practice of reporting the name and address of a person assaulted varies. I would say that, generally speaking, the standard of local and provincial newspapers is a high one. I know of one newspaper in which it is the general rule not to publish the name and address of a young person who has been assaulted, although it may be of help to the police and to the public to publish the general circumstances. That may be of some advantage to the police in trying to find the person who committed the act. In one case I have in mind, by error the name and address was inadvertently mentioned, but in all subsequent editions of the newspaper it was deleted, and that is a practice which can be commended.
Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, does not apply to cases to which I am now referring. That Section applies to hearings in court. I have in mind the reporting of an incident of which the Press have been 565 made aware by the police. It is in those circumstances that it is inadvisable for the name and address of the person assaulted to be mentioned, because it causes unnecessary distress. It would be helpful if some way could be found whereby the Home Secretary could make a recommendation of a general nature to deal with cases such as this, and so lessen the publicity and distress caused thereby.

§ Mr. Elwyn Jones (West Ham, South)
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) and the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) in their representations to the Minister of State on this matter.
Although there are occasions when Press publicity is vital in the discovery of the criminal, as we have seen in recent cases, nevertheless there is a considerable danger in pandering excessively to the apparently inexhaustible hunger for news of sexual perversion, especially affecting the young, and such excessive pandering in the Press tends to clothe the sordid with normality. I hope that careful steps will be taken to see that when a break is made in the normal practice against disclosure of names it is made only in the most exceptional circumstances, and in the gravest type of case.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Dennis Vosper)
I should like to thank the hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu) for his generous opening remarks and I am sorry that, because of difficulties which he will understand, I am not able fully to respond to this debate. I think I can say that the whole House will sympathise with the unfortunate people whom the hon. Member and his hon. Friends have in mind. He did not mention any specific case, but I think he knows that the case which I think he has in mind is not one in which the Home Secretary would have any power of intervention. Nor, as you would rule, Mr. Speaker—indeed, you have already ruled—would it be appropriate for me to discuss on an Adjournment Motion any suggestion implying that legislation covering, for example, Press censorship, should be considered to deal with a case like that. I am, therefore, able to deal 566 in only a limited way with the point which the hon. Member has made.
The hon. Gentleman related his argument to the activities of the Metropolitan Police for which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is responsible, and he dealt with this matter in a hypothetical manner. He asked, if a case came to the attention of my right hon. Friend in which the police had divulged to the Press the name of the victim, what would be the attitude of my right hon. Friend. It is very difficult for me to reply to what is a hypothetical case and to generalise about what is an individual or personal matter. My right hon. Friend is responsible for the Metropolitan Police and only for them and in such a case the matter is left to their discretion. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree, though it is difficult to generalise, that in general the names of the victims should not be disclosed.
I understood the hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) to say that there could be cases where, in the interests of tracing the offender, it would be necessary to disclose the name of the victim. I have in mind a recent case which falls into that category. But I should have thought that it would be only in those cases where the Metropolitan Police, acting within the discretion allowed to them, would be able to disclose the name of the victim, and confine disclosure to those cases.
The responsibility of my right hon. Friend does not extend beyond the Metropolitan Police, but I suppose that in general most police forces would adopt the same sort of procedure.
The other point which arises out of this debate, which was touched on both by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, East and by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), is related to cases which come before the courts. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West referred to Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933. This is a Section designed to prevent from exposure to harmful publicity children who come before the courts as a result of court proceedings. Both Section 39 and Section 49 of the Act are applicable in these sorts of cases, and I think it is worth my while to say a word about them.
567 Section 49 requires that newspapers shall not report the name, address, school, photograph or other identifying particulars of any child or young person concerned in proceedings in a juvenile court. There is in fact a proviso—one which is rarely used—whereby the court or the Secretary of State can allow the publication of identifying particulars if satisfied in any case that it is in the interests of justice to do so. That would be to some extent analogous with the powers of the Metropolitan Police in a case which has not come before the courts. Children are brought before juvenile courts under the 1933 Act not only as offenders but also as being in need of care and protection within the meaning of the Act, and some of those in the latter category have been the victims of offences, including sexual offences. This is an important provision and one that, according to my information, is generally well observed by the newspapers.
Then there is the earlier Section, Section 39, which provides that in any proceedings in any court adult or otherwise—Section 49 refers to juvenile courts only— … in any proceedings which arise out of any offence against, or any conduct contrary to, decency or morality, the court may direct … no newspaper shall reveal the name or other identifying particulars of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings. This Section is widely drawn. It appears to apply to proceedings in a civil court as well as in a criminal court.
In 1955 the Press Council told the Home Secretary of the day that this provision was not protecting young witnesses effectively, because the attention of the court was not expressly drawn to its powers at the outset of every such case in which a child or young person was concerned; and that, in consequence, the court either did not consider giving a direction that would prevent publication of identifying particulars, or gave the direction too late to prevent publication in the first reports of the proceedings.
568 As a result of these representations five years ago, the Home Office sent circular letters to clerks to justices, clerks of peace and clerks of assize and to the chief constables suggesting that arrangements should be made for the courts to be informed at the outset of any case in which the Section applied that a child was to be concerned in the proceedings. Since the issue of those circulars, I have not heard of any criticism that this safeguard was failing to achieve its objective. This whole matter in respect of proceedings before the court was considered by the Ingleby Committee, whose Report was published a few weeks ago. In general the Committee considered that the safeguards were adequate, but it was considering the matter only where proceedings had been instituted. It considered them adequate but recommended slight extensions which the Home Secretary is at present considering. None of these extensions would go far enough to afford protection in the kind of case the hon. Member has in mind, because in that particular case no proceedings had been commenced.
It is the general experience, however, that even when no statutory restriction applies, the newspapers exercise a reasonable discretion in reporting cases in which children and young persons are involved and the Press will nearly always respond well to an appeal by the court, or indeed, by any other responsible authority. As I have said, these provisions do not cover the cases which the hon. Member has in mind where no proceedings have been instituted. All I can say in respect of them relates to the powers and discretion of the Metropolitan Police.
The issue of tonight's debate is of a very wide nature, but I think I can say that the hon. Member has done a service this evening in drawing attention to the harm which may flow from inconsiderate newspaper reports, and I hope that his remarks will be widely noticed.