HC Deb 27 June 1960 vol 625 cc1103-14

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]

10.9 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg (Dudley)

I wish to raise the case of a constituent, Mr. W. J. Darby, who was charged before a police court in Dudley with stealing coal, a charge on which he was convicted and conditionally discharged. I knew nothing of the circumstances of the case until the weekend of 20th March, when several national newspapers approached me about reports from my constituency that Mr. Darby's fingerprints had been improperly obtained. The next morning I had a letter from Mr. Darby setting out the circumstances and I at once did three things.

First, I informed myself as best I could as to the law on the subject. Secondly, I wrote to the Home Secretary, and, thirdly, I approached the Chief Constable of Dudley. Needless to say, I am perfectly aware that there is a marked and fundamental difference between a case in my constituency and one such as that of the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. Johnson)—raised on the Adjournment last Thursday—which is in the Metropolitan area.

I held the view that the first step was to establish the facts, and it is important that I should read the letter that I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, because I do not want it to go out from this House that I am raising this matter with a view to condemning or undermining in any way the authority of the Dudley police in general and of the Chief Constable in particular. In my letter to the Home Secretary on 21st March I said: I enclose a letter I have received from Mr. W. J. Darby, … and I shall be very grateful if you will let me have your comments on it. I should like to take the opportunity of making it quite clear that I have the highest regard and respect for the Chief Constable of Dudley, but it would seem that, if the facts are as stated, Mr. Darby was unaware that his attendance after conviction for the purpose of having his fingerprints and photograph taken was a voluntary act, and it occurs to me that it might be useful if Police authorities were to make it clear to a convicted person that although they are under an obligation to invite him to have his fingerprints and photograph taken, he is at liberty to refuse. You will doubtless be aware that this matter has received considerable Press publicity and I have deliberately refrained from taking action by placing a Question on the Order Paper until such time as the facts have been established. At the same time that I wrote that letter, I telephoned the Chief Constable of Dudley and told him of the inquiries made of me by the Press and of the letter I had received from Mr. Darby. Later that week I had a letter from the Chief Constable and I saw him. At that time I had only Mr. Darby's statement. Subsequently, I saw Mr. Darby and did my best to make myself aware of the facts in detail. What happened was this.

After Mr. Darby's conviction he went home, rather relieved. I think, that he had escaped being fined and that he had been conditionally discharged. Nothing was said to him at the time either about having his fingerprints taken, or having his photograph taken. The next day. Thursday, 3rd March, at 11.10 p.m., just as he was going upstairs to bed, a knock came on the door, and when he answered it a policeman was there who told him that he was wanted at the police station next day. Mr. Darby inquired what the police wanted him for and the police officer replied that he did not know.

The next day, on 4th March, Mr. Darby went to the police station and the police officer who originally stopped him said, "Mr. Darby, you will have to have your fingerprints taken; it should have been done before." Mr. Darby said, "I thought that when I went to court on Wednesday that was the finish of it." The police officer replied, "You must have your fingerprints and photograph taken." They went upstairs, but could not open the door of the room which contained the necessary apparatus. The police officer then asked Mr. Darby to attend on Saturday, 5th March. On that day he went to the inquiry desk at Dudley Police Station and told the police officer there that he had come to have his fingerprints taken. He asked, "What happens if I refuse to have them taken?" The police officer said that he did not know, but turned to an inspector and asked him, and the inspector replied that if Mr. Darby did not have his fingerprints taken it would make trouble for himself and for them. Mr. Darby had his fingerprints taken.

The following week, on the night of Saturday, 12th March—again at night—when Mr. Darby got back home his wife told him that a policeman had called and said that he must again go to the police station. Mr. Darby went to the police station on Sunday, 13th March. He was told that the photograph, when developed, was not satisfactory and that he must have it taken again. Consequently, my constituent went to the police station three times. I took the view that it was extremely improbable that if I were in those circumstances I should go without protest. Indeed, I should not have gone unless I thought I had to go. I formed the view that Mr. Darby's attitude to these matters was not unlike my own.

On the one hand were Mr. Darby's views as he expressed them to me. On the other, there were the views of the Chief Constable. I agree with the hon. Member who told us the other evening that neither this House nor the Home Office is a court of appeal. We cannot discharge a judicial function. However, it seems to me that somebody should. I thought that there ought to be an investigation. I went to the Town Clerk of Dudley and said that I should be satisfied if Mr. Darby were seen by a person such as himself, who could hear his story, weigh the probabilities and come to a conclusion about it, because I could see that there had almost been a comedy of errors and that the mistakes were not likely to be repeated. Indeed, I urged Mr. Darby not to make heavy weather of it. Both of us would have been satisfied if the fingerprints and the photographs had been destroyed.

I put that point to the Home Secretary. Up to this point I am obliged to the Home Secretary and the Joint Under-Secretary of State for their kindness to me. However, at this point things began to get cagey. My investigations have now gone a little further. The Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, states: Registers of all persons convicted of crime in the United Kingdom shall be kept in such form and containing such particulars as may from time to time be prescribed, in Great Britain by one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State … The register for England shall be kept in London under the management of the commissioner of police of the metropolis, or such other person as the Secretary of State may appoint. The hon. and learned Gentleman can tell the House, and can certainly tell me, whether I am wrong, but I suspect—indeed, I am reasonably sure—that the Home Office, quite properly, has gone behind that Statute—though not the spirit of it—having worked out for itself a scheme of devolution. It is my suspicion that the fingerprints and photographs of Mr. Darby are now in the custody, very probably, of either the Chief Constable of Wolverhampton or the Chief Constable of Birmingham, and that whereas I have a right to go to the Home Secretary and say, "Photographs have been taken illegally of a constituent of mine. They have been taken without his being aware of his rights in the matter. Please tear them up", it would put the Home Secretary in a very difficult position if he told me why he could not do it, because it would be an admission that, by administrative action, he had gone behind the law. Secondly, he would have to give instructions to the Chief Constable of Wolverhampton or the Chief Constable of Birmingham when, in fact, he has no power so to order them.

Therefore, I should like to know from the Joint Under-Secretary where these photographs and fingerprints are. Are they in the custody of a person appointed under the authority of the 1871 Act, or is it that he does not know where they are? These are not unimportant points.

Let us go on from Mr. Darby to the general issue as it affects other people, because one of the assertions that are made in the correspondence with me is that this is normal practice. I believe this to be true. From the inquiries that I have made in the London area, and up and down the country, the law is being disregarded for perfectly reasonable and proper administrative reasons, always provided that this House consents.

It is very convenient for the police to build up a great library of fingerprints and photographs. If that were carried to its logical conclusion, every child in infancy would have its fingerprints taken—I do not say photographs, because people change as they get older, but I understand that fingerprints do not. It would be very neat and convenient, but if that should happen we would have gone a very long way towards a police State.

No Member of the House is more passionate than I am in internal and external affairs to support the rule of law, but those who are charged with the task of seeing that the law is carried out must themselves obey it. I do not believe that in Dudley the police are any worse or any better than the police elsewhere. I think that if inquiries were made by the Home Office, I should be satisfied. It would go a long way towards satisfying me if I could get an assurance from the Joint Under-Secretary that the Home Office would make inquiries to see the extent to which the law is being flouted. Perhaps I put it a little too strongly when I use the word "flouted", because I think that the young police officers who made contact with Mr. Darby behaved with perfect propriety and were absolutely courteous, but I believe, also, that they were unaware that they were infringing the law by doing as they did.

I do not believe that the responsibility is theirs. I believe that when a person is taken into custody, and the police have the power to take fingerprints or to go to a magistrate and get his authority to take fingerprints, a senior police officer should be charged with the task of telling the man or woman concerned why they are having their fingerprints taken and that if that person does not have them taken the police will go to a magistrate and get authority to take that action. In the event of his being acquitted he can ask for them to be destroyed. In the case of people not taken into custody they should be given a written notice, or should sign a declaration so that they would be aware that it was a purely voluntary action on their part to have their fingerprints taken.

When I first raised this matter I had difficulty in getting Questions on the Order Paper. When I surmounted that, I had difficulty in getting this Adjournment. I can understand the embarrassment of the Home Office in wanting to get as far away from this as it could.

Mr. Speaker

I accept my share of responsibility, but I have a duty to the House to keep even the hon. Member in order. I think that he has reached the limit in this matter. It was my fault if he had difficulty about the Adjournment, but it was rightly so.

Mr. Wigg

I do not want to come into conflict with the Chair on a question of procedure, but since, Mr. Speaker, you have mentioned the matter, I think that I shall be in order in saying that in the fifteen years I have been in the House this is the first time that I have come across an instance where a Department of State has thought it proper, in writing, to object first to a Question of mine and then to an Adjournment. I do not want to make heavy weather of it, but I mention, in passing, that these things do happen. The fact that I am in order is the fact that I am addressing the House tonight on the Adjournment. I submit, with respect, that nothing I have said tonight is out of order.

The Adjournment is directed to establishing that the Minister should give me an answer on two points. First, he has responsibility under the Prevention of Crimes Act. On the other point, on which I had given notice and the Home Secretary was good enough to see me, I put it to him that this case and its implications were sufficiently serious for the Home Secretary to set up an inquiry under the Tribunal of Evidence Act, 1921. There are many precedents for this. If I am pressed, I must point out that I have here a copy of the report which the Chief Constable gave to the Watch Committee in Dudley. When asked to carry out an investigation, the Dudley Watch Committee had an investigation which did not involve even seeing Mr. Darby. That is a travesty of an investigation.

Mr. Speaker

I do not wish to be troublesome to the hon. Member and, indeed, I want to help him, but I cannot invent some kind of responsibility for the moment for the Minister in respect of these things. I will hear what the hon. Member has to say, but I understand that the Minister has no responsibility.

Mr. Wigg

With great respect, whether there is responsibility is not a matter for the Chair. On the adjournment I can raise any subject, including, since Standing Orders have been amended, even matters requiring legislation. I therefore submit that I am in order as far as the Adjournment is concerned.

Mr. Speaker

That is not quite right. The rule is that any hon. Member may raise on the Adjournment a matter for which there is Ministerial responsibility—I do not wish to waste time. The only addendum made by the new rule is that whereas an hon. Member could not before, he now can, refer incidentally to a matter requiring legislation, but Ministerial responsibility is a fundament for the right to raise a matter on the Adjournment.

Mr. Wigg

I do not wish to waste my own time, or even appear to differ from the respect which I owe you, Mr. Speaker, but on a number of occasions hon. Members have addressed an empty Chamber because a Minister has not been present and because the hon. Member concerned has not asked him to be there.

I am not doing that. I have given full notice of what I consider to be the Minister's position under the Prevention of Crimes Act, and I believe that I have established my case. It is that the person who has custody for finger prints and photographs is appointed by the Home Secretary and I am also saying that because of the serious nature of the matters there should be an inquiry into the things that I have mentioned.

There is an additional reason which I have not yet been able to put. I have the report of the Chief Constable which he submitted to the Watch Committee. To speak in moderate terms, it is a highly tendentious document which introduces matters of which Mr. Darby could know absolutely nothing, including allegations about a reporter whom Mr. Darby does not even know. My inquiries have been fairly extensive.

That a man should be properly charged and convicted and should then find his case blazoned all over the country—it may be argued, partly through his own fault—and should then have his finger prints and photographs retained as a result of a decision by the Dudley Watch Committee which has not even heard the man and which has based its decision on a document containing a number of points of which he knows nothing, coupled with the fact that he was visited by the police late at night, introduces a state of affairs which ought not to exist anywhere.

I should be failing in my duty as the Member of Parliament for Dudley if I did not go even to the point of infringing your patience and kindness, Mr. Speaker, and getting near the borderline of order. I very much hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will find it in his heart to go a long way to satisfying the doubts which I have expressed.

10.29 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton)

As the House well knows, and as you have recently reminded us, Mr. Speaker, the Home Secretary is not answerable here for the acts of provincial police forces. There is regular machinery, however, for investigating and dealing with complaints by members of the public, and the right people in this case to have investigations made are the Chief Constable and the Watch Committee for Dudley, with whom the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has been in contact.

It certainly would not be right for me to argue in detail the merits of the various allegations which have been made by Mr. Darby and the hon. Member on his behalf, but it would be only fair to the police to inform the House that there is another version of the events described apart from that which has been given.

The Chief Constable has told my right hon. Friend that he informed the hon. Member that after his conviction Mr. Darby attended the police station on three occasions in order to be photographed and to have his fingerprints taken. It is agreed on all sides that there was no power to compel Mr. Darby to attend or to have his fingerprints taken. But the police asked Mr. Darby if he was willing to attend and have has fingerprints and photograph taken. As the Chief Constable has already told the hon. Member in a letter, the police say that on each occasion they informed Mr. Darby that he was free to object if he wished and that on each occasion he said that he did not wish to object.

I think it also material in this case to mention that the senior police officer dealing with the case went to some pains to help Mr. Darby, because he approached Mr. Darby's employer to intercede in the hope that Mr. Darby would not lose his employment as the result of this conviction. The hon. Member says that it is unlikely that Mr. Darby would voluntarily attend the police station three times in order to have his fingerprints taken, but surely it is equally unlikely that if there was any bad feeling between him and the police the police would have gone out of their way to try to keep his job for him. I mention those facts merely to show that there is another side but not to give any opinion on it.

I understand that the Chief Constable did cause an inquiry to be made into the matter when the first approach was made by a newspaper reporter, and that he looked into the matter again when the hon. Member's letter to the Home Secretary was passed on to him. Also the Chief Constable reported the matter to the Watch Committee, which has considered it on at least two occasions. I understand that both the Watch Committee and the Chief Constable are satisfied that there is no foundation to Mr. Darby's complaints. So far as the Home Secretary is concerned, the matter must rest there.

I described on the Adjournment the other night, and there is no need for me to repeat it now, the various courses that lie at the suit of the citizen. If the fingerprints of someone are forcibly taken against his will, there is a civil action for assault and battery. That would not be appropriate in this case, because that is not suggested by the hon. Gentleman. He suggests that Mr. Darby was ignorant of the law and the police did not tell him what the law was. Unfortunately, there is no question of an action arising in those circumstances, although if it happened there might be cause for a complaint against the police officer who failed to point out what was the legal requirement. But there again, that is a matter of complaint to the Chief Constable to be dealt with under the disciplinary procedure of the police disciplinary regulations.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that there should be a public inquiry into this matter. My right hon. Friend has considered that very carefully and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, has come to the conclusion that it would not be necessary or appropriate in this case for there to be a public inquiry.

I now turn to the question of the fingerprint procedure. I will deal with it as quickly as I can, although there is quite a lot to be said. There are two principal points relevant to this case. The Acts under which a person may be compelled to have his fingerprints taken are not relevant here, but there is nothing unlawful about the police taking the fingerprints of a person with his consent. Indeed, it is entirely proper for the police to try to obtain the fingerprints of those people who have been convicted even if that can only be done, as is sometimes the case, if the person consents. Fingerprints are the most important element in criminal records and one of the most satisfactory means of identification, and they help the police a very great deal in dealing with the very serious crime wave which we have.

Nevertheless, I think that everyone appreciates—we certainly do in the Home Office—that there is something repugnant to ordinary people in having fingerprints taken. I can assure the House that, in so far as this is a matter of the liberty of the subject, it is very much in our minds.

The attention of chief constables has for many years been directed to the need to ensure that people should be given warning that they have a right to object to their fingerprints being taken by the police when there is no order of the court. My right hon. Friend has no reason to doubt but that this advice is followed in general throughout the country.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

rose—

Mr. Renton

It would be better if I say what I must in answer to the hon. Member for Dudley and, if there is time, I will then give way.

I cannot speak for the detailed practice in every provincial police force, but it is of interest to note that in the Metropolitan Police Force comparatively large notices, which are not easily overlooked and which are easy to read, are hung up in conspicuous positions in police stations warning people of their right to object. Also—this, again, is in the Metropolitan Police—anyone whose fingerprints it is proposed to take is handed a small printed notice informing him of his right to object. If he objects, his fingerprints should not be taken. I am sure that attention is given to this matter in all forces.

The next question that arises on what the hon. Gentleman has said is with regard to the destruction of fingerprints which are kept in the Criminal Record Office; copies may be retained by the chief constable concerned, either temporarily or permanently; it is for him to decide, and he is entitled to do so. Under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, the Home Secretary's responsibility is confined to a power to prescribe, if it is necessary, the form in which criminal records should be kept in the central register and the particulars that should be kept in the register. It is merely to prescribe what form and what particulars. There is no responsibility for the actual records contained in the register or for ensuring that they have been properly obtained.

In the Metropolitan Police there is a carefully worked out system to ensure that fingerprints which ought to be destroyed are in fact destroyed. This procedure applies whether the prints were taken by the Metropolitan Police or were obtained, as in this case, for the record from another force and submitted by the chief constable of the other force.

In this case, Mr. Darby had been convicted, and the only ground on which the records could properly be destroyed would be if they had been improperly taken from him, either by force or without his consent. If they were obtained by force, it would be without his consent, so it comes to taken without his consent.

The police say that they were properly taken. Unless it is clearly established in any particular case that fingerprints were improperly taken, the Criminal Record Office would not destroy them.

The hon. Gentleman said on Thursday that he was anxious to do all he could to help the police, and I am grateful to him for saying that. I know that he and the House generally will recognise that the maintenance of complete records is an important public interest—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-one minutes to Eleven o'clock.