HC Deb 26 July 1967 vol 751 cc765-8

Lords Amendment: No. 6, in page 11, line 8, at the end to insert: () For the purposes of the foregoing subsection a person sentenced to borstal training shall be treated as if he had been sentenced for a term of more than three months, and a person sentenced to be detained for an offence during Her Majesty's pleasure or during the pleasure of the Governor of Northern Ireland shall be treated as if he had been sentenced to detention for life.

Mr. Taverne

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a drafting Amendment to make it clear, first, that persons sentenced to borstal training fall within the temporary disqualification from jury service provided by subsection (1,a), and, second, that permanent disqualification from service extends to young persons sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure.

Sir D. Renton

I am a little puzzled about the inclusion of a person detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. One can well understand that such a person might not make a very good juror, because a juror is expected to have a rational judgment, and someone who on a previous occasion has been ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure might, therefore, be unsuitable to serve. However, one likes to think of the justice of this matter.

If a person who has been so detained in the past is called by mistake to serve on a jury and, not being one of the people of the brightest and most alert mentality, continues to serve on the jury, is it right that he should make himself liable to be punished quite heavily? It may be that the Government have considered this point, but it is one on which we are entitled to an explanation.

Mr. Taverne

I must make it clear that these are not persons of unsound mind. Normally, they will be young murderers, in effect.

Half of this Amendment arises out of Section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act as substituted by Section 1(5) of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act, 1965. There may be cases of people of unsound mind, but, in any event, one is faced with whether one should disqualify such people from jury service, and I think that the answer is that there should be permanent disqualification. The second question is, if such people are disqualified, should there be any sanction against those who wrongly serve on juries? It can be left to the courts how severe the sanction should be, but there must be some sanction and, therefore, some penalties.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: No. 7, in line 11, to leave out "£100" and to insert "£250".

Mr. Taverne

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The effect of the Amendment is to raise the penalty for serving on a jury when disqualified from a maximum of £100 to one of £250.

Mr. Carlisle

One small point which is important in deciding whether this Amendment should be accepted is that, as it stands, the Clause lays down an absolute offence. Am I right in saying that mens rea has no part? Therefore, should we pass new absolute offences and then increase the possible fine by Amendment from £100 to £250?

If the Clause had said: "If a person knowingly serves on a jury …", I should agree with the increased penalty. However, as it stands at the moment, it appears that it is an absolute offence. If it is an absolute offence without the necessity of proving mens rea, I should have thought that the existing penalty was adequate.

Mr. Taverne

With the leave of the House, I will answer that point. The hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) asked me for a legal interpretation off the cuff. The absence of the word "knowingly" does not mean automatically that mens rea is excluded. It depends very much on the total context.

My immediate view is that mens rea would be required, but that is something which would have to be left to the interpretation of the courts. I should have thought that there is nothing in the context in which this offence is created which would require an absolute statutory offence, and I should be very surprised if the courts took the view that, even though a person did not know that he was disqualified, he was still guilty.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: No. 8, in line 15, at the end to insert: () Any sheriff or other officer having power to summon persons to serve on juries in criminal proceedings shall send with every summons for that purpose a notice stating the effect of the foregoing provisions of this section.

Mr. Taverne

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The Amendment makes it a statutory duty for the summoning officer to issue with every jury summons a notice relating to disqualification. It was always intended that that should be the practice, but we agreed to accept an Opposition Amendment moved during the Committee stage in the Lords that the practice should take the form of a statutory duty.

Mr. Percy Grieve (Solihull)

It seems to me that this Amendment deals to some extent with the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Sir D. Renton) on the last two Amendments. Surely the question of knowledge depends on whether the person knows that he is disqualified? If he receives a notice setting out the disqualification, surely that should meet the necessities of the case? It is for this reason that I welcome the Amendment.

Sir D. Renton

One point which I think is important has occurred to me following the interesting suggestion made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). In the event of the sheriff summoning a juror, but failing to put in a notice, may we have an assurance that the juror will not be deemed to have committed the offence?

Mr. Taverne

If I may have the leave of the House to speak again, I cannot give any such assurance, and certainly one cannot now further amend the law. As I see it, it will depend on whether the juror knew that he was disqualified.

Question put and agreed to.