BRIGHTON TAXI DRIVER (CONVICTION) (Hansard, 9 February 1970)

§ Mr. Dennis Hobden (Brighton, Kemptown)
I want this evening to raise a problem affecting one of my constituents, a Mr. Brown, who is employed in Brighton by the local taxi company. This debate arises from an unfortunate event in Brighton station at 9 p.m. on the night of 7th January, 1969, when Mr. Brown and a colleague, a Mr. Tasker, were sitting in their taxis on the forecourt of Brighton Stat ion—

§ Mr. Hobden
Mr. Brown and his colleague, a Mr. Tasker, were sitting in their taxis on the forecourt of Brighton Station, which is used as a taxi rank. Suddenly the attention of these two men was attracted by loud screams and cries for help. On looking round, they saw a man in civilian clothes pulling and dragging a 14-year-old boy. Mr. Brown has said that he could see that the boy was in pain. He could see no justification for his treatment. As the cries continued, Mr. Tasker ran over to the man and told him to release the boy, but he refused. By that time Mr. Brown had reached the group, and he repeated Mr. Tasker's request to leave the boy alone. At this Mr. Brown was told by the man to clear off and mind his own business. In all this man was requested three times to leave the boy alone. This man continued to refuse and, believing that the boy was being molested, Mr. Brown aimed a blow at the man, knocking him to the ground, and it was subsequently found that he had sustained a fractured nose.
It was not until that stage, after repeated requests to leave the boy alone, that the man divulged that he was a police officer with the railway police. Other railway policemen 1040 appeared on the scene and Mr. Brown asked a police constable who was the man, as he wanted to make a complaint about his conduct. To this the constable replied that he could do nothing as the officer was his inspector. In view of that, Mr. Brown next day went to Brighton police station where he saw an officer in the C.I.D. and made a complaint. The following day Mr. Brown returned to the C.I.D., where he was advised that no incident had been reported and that therefore no action would be taken. Yet four months later Mr. Brown was served with a summons accusing him of assaulting a police inspector, as was Mr. Tasker. When the case was heard at Brighton magistrates court, Mr. Tasker was convicted and given an absolute discharge and Mr. Brown was convicted and fined £20 with costs.
It was at this stage that I came into the picture, when I received a considerable number of complaints from the public and a local Brighton councillor drew the matter to my attention and asked me to deal with it. I explained my difficulties, as a Member of Parliament, in regard to court verdicts, and advised the two men to appeal. Some weeks later the appeals were heard. Mr. Tasker's appeal was upheld while that of Mr. Brown was refused. I am not commenting in any way on the results of either decision of the courts. I believe that I should be ruled out of order if I did so. I mentioned the court's verdicts merely to outline the facts of the matter with relation to the sequence of events that took place.
I feel, as the public of Brighton felt, sorry for Mr. Brown in his predicament, and I want to ask my hon. Friend whether she will seriously consider the recommendation of the Royal Prerogative in this case. In giving my reasons for this I want to show that in Brighton the local taxi drivers are held in high esteem by the community. They are a responsible group of people and have on many occasions proved themselves public spirited. The Brighton police would be the first to acknowledge that. It is interesting to recall—and I want this to be borne in mind against the background of this case—that a Brighton taxi driver was commended in court for apprehending a man who was molesting a boy in that same railway station. Therefore, 1041 this is a group of men who are interested in the maintenance of law and order and who are public spirited in that sense.
For over 13 years Mr. Brown was a member of the London police force and presumably knew how to handle the situation in helping the boy. I reiterate that he asked the man on no fewer than three occasions to let the boy go.
After the blow was struck, and when the man revealed that he was a police officer, Mr. Brown called him a liar and said that no policeman would act in such a way. Apart from this, the House may think that the inspector's actions were curious, to say the least. This man was an inspector by rank, not a lowly police constable. He was off duty and in plain clothes but was apprehending a young boy who was skylarking about on a bicycle on the Brighton station forecourt. It is strange that no ordinary police constables were in the vicinity at that time. Yet within seconds of the affair, two or three appeared. I wonder whether the Brighton Railway Police have reached the level at which inspectors have to bother about boys when police constables are on duty.
My own view is that the inspector by now must wish that this episode had never happened. The discrepancies in the evidence as between one court and another indicate a serious lapse of memory. Again, I am not commenting on the merits—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that we cannot re-try a case in the House of Commons. If he wants to criticise the magistrate or the judge, he can do so by tabling a Motion on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Hobden
If I have understood you correctly, Mr. Speaker, I must not criticise the courts. I make it clear that I am not doing so. I am merely criticising the evidence which the man gave as between one court and the other. I hope that I am in order in doing that.
In the magistrates' court the inspector agreed that it might have looked to a passerby as if he was mishandling the boy. Yet at the higher court he said that he did not mishandle the boy in any way. Perhaps the boy was screaming for fun. In the lower court the inspector said that he saw three boys riding about 1042 the station entrance on cycles and thought that they were creating a danger. He said that when he called on them because of this, two rode away and the third hid behind a barrow and then tried to run away. By the time the case reached the higher court the story had been altered; the inspector then said that he suspected the boy of tampering with parcels stacked at the station.
Again, in the magistrates' court the inspector said that he was not in police uniform and there was nothing to suggest that he was a police officer. In the appeal court he said that he had a mackintosh—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. With respect, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman understood what I said. We cannot re-try the case. I understand that the hon. Gentleman asked for the Adjournment because he wants the Secretary of State to exercise the Royal Prerogative. He must address himself to that.

§ Mr. Hobden
Very well, Mr. Speaker. Obviously I bow to your Ruling. In any case, I have almost finished.
I want to refer back to Mr. Brown's service with the London police force. He now has a conviction, though he acted with the best of intentions, helping, as he thought, a small boy who was being molested. If confidence is to be restored in Brighton on an incident of this kind, I should be glad if my right hon. Friend, in the light of what I have said, would give the fullest consideration to the question of restoring to Mr. Brown his hitherto unblemished character.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mrs. Shirley Williams)
I appreciate the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Hobden) for his constituent. I understand how keenly Mr. Brown feels about his conviction. But I am afraid that the position remains that this is not a case in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is able to intervene. I can do no more tonight than explain more fully the reasons why this is so.
To put the matter into perspective, I should mention to the House briefly one or two additional facts about the unhappy incident which led to Mr. Brown's appearance in court and what followed. In doing so I shall try to give the facts 1043 as neutrally as possible. My hon. Friend will appreciate that there can always be more than one version of an incident and that people may sincerely differ to some extent about what happened.
On the evening of 7th January last year, just after 9 o'clock, an inspector of the British Transport police had completed duty at Brighton station and was in plain clothes waiting at a 'bus stop facing the station when he saw three boys of 13 and 14 riding their bicycles without lights and playing a sort of "follow my leader" game, circling the road. He then saw them ride into the station past a "no entry" sign and against the flow of the one-way traffic and out again. They repeated this at some danger to themselves and other traffic and then rode off.
A few minutes later the boys reappeared and again rode through the exit gates of the station into the parcels dispersal area where barrows loaded with parcels for various trains are left until departure times. The inspector saw the boys moving around the barrows and moving some of them and he went to investigate. This seems very reasonable behaviour, since an accident might well have occurred affecting the boys. He shouted to the boys to come out because they had no right to be in that part of the station, and two of them left immediately. The eldest, the 14-year old, remained hidden behind a barrow because, he said, his bicycle got caught up.
Becoming suspicious, the inspector caught the boy by his collar as he tried to run away. The inspector told the boy he was a police officer and asked him to come to the police office so that he could check what he had been doing. A struggle developed in which, the officer said, the boy lay on the ground shouting and had to be picked up.
Mr. Brown and another taxi-driver, hearing the commotion and believing the boy was being ill-treated, ran to his rescue. The inspector said that the first driver struck his wrists and arms to try to get him to release his hold upon the boy and that he then told him that he was a police officer. He said that Mr. Brown then ran up—he was the other man involved, of course—and, without a word, struck him full in the face with his fist, knocking him to the ground. It 1044 was afterwards found that the officer's nose was broken.
Summonses were subsequently issued against both drivers, and they appeared at Brighton Magistrates' Court on 9th April last, when Mr. Brown pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting the police inspector thereby occasioning actual bodily harm, while the other driver pleaded not guilty to a charge of common assault. During the course of the hearing, there was some conflict of evidence as to what had been said by the two accused and by the officer. The boy himself gave evidence that the inspector had held him by the collar and had not hurt him, though someone had said his neck was red. Incidentally, neither the boy nor his parents made any complaint then, or subsequently. Mr. Brown said he did not know the man holding the boy was a police officer and that if the inspector had told him he would not have struck him.
After hearing all the evidence, the magistrates found the case against both men proved. Mr. Brown was fined £20 and ordered to pay 10 guineas costs; the other driver was given an absolute discharge and ordered to pay five guineas costs.
Both men appealed against their convictions and the appeal was heard at Brighton Quarter Sessions on 12th May. I would remind the House that an appeal to quarter sessions means a complete rehearing of the case, in which witnesses are again examined and cross-examined and fresh argument can be heard. In giving the court's decision, the Recorder found that the boy was not in any way ill-treated, nor could the inspector be criticised for his handling of him". but the Recorder recognised that it was a case of respectable people trying sincerely to help. He accepted that the other driver had delivered one or two blows but that these were not of a serious nature, and, accordingly, allowed his appeal and quashed his conviction. In the case of Mr. Brown, however, he found that the facts did not justify the nature of his action, and, in particular, that he had used greatly excessive force. Mr. Brown's appeal was, therefore, dismissed and he was ordered to pay further costs of 15 guineas.
It is not for me to justify the decision of the court, and I do not presume to 1045 do so. But I think it right to call attention to what I believe was the key to that decision, and that was the finding that a greater degree of force was used than was justified. In this kind of situation, if personal injury has been caused by a person attempting to rescue another, it is a crucial question whether that person's intervention was necessary and whether the manner of his intervention was reasonable. That is a matter for the court to decide in the light of the evidence before it.
My hon. Friend referred to what he called discrepancies of evidence. But, again, it was open to counsel at the appeal to make what they would of such discrepancies and to put them before the court.
Since the appeal was dismissed, my right hon. Friend has received a number of representations asking him to recommend the exercise of the Prerogative of mercy to set aside the decision of the court. Many persons both locally and elsewhere have felt concern that a momentary action motivated, I am sure, by the best intentions should have had this result, and I think that this reaction is understandable.
My hon. Friend referred to the excellent help which Brighton taxi drivers had given to the police in the past. My right hon. Friend has pointed out to Councillor Betts, the spokesman of the Brighton taxi drivers, how much he values the public's co-operation and that of the taxi drivers in preventing and detecting crime.
It is fundamental to our system of law and justice that the trial of particular cases is a matter for the courts, and that the proper procedure for the correction of any possible error by the court of trial is by way of judicial consideration by a higher court. The Executive—the Government—have no part in the determination of the guilt or innocence of an accused person, and I feel sure that no one in the House would think that it should have. There is within the constitution a final power in the Crown to pardon and to remit penalties, and this of course is exercised on the advice of the Home Secretary. This power survives as an ultimate means of correcting a miscarriage of justice which the courts have failed to correct. By this 1046 means the Home Secretary was, for example, able to intervene in recent months to effect the immediate release of a prisoner when fresh evidence which had not come to light until after his unsuccessful appeal established conclusively that he had not committed the offence, and was not, indeed, at the scene of the crime. But it is a well-recognised and very necessary convention that the Executive ought not to abuse the power in such a way as to usurp the functions of the courts.
It is no part, therefore, of the Home Secretary's responsibilities under the Prerogative of Mercy to re-try a case. He is not a court of appeal or a reviewing authority, and it is not for him to go over the evidence which was before the courts or to substitute his own judgment for that of the courts. He can properly consider the possibility of Prerogative action only if there is some fresh evidence or new factor which for one reason or another was not before the courts and which, if it had been, might possibly have affected the decision either as to conviction or to sentence. Of course, it does not follow that the production of new evidence will necessarily lead to Prerogative action—it may be found upon inquiry that it is not so material or conclusive as to justify any interference—but without anything fresh as in this case, the Home Secretary cannot possibly presume to inquire into the decision of the court.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we have looked with care and sympathy into all that has been put to us on behalf of Mr. Brown, but we cannot find any significant point which has not already been fully argued in the courts, though I am sure that my right hon. Friend is right to raise this matter if he feels that his constituent's case deserves further consideration. There is no basis on which the Home Secretary can consider interference. Without wishing to reflect in any way upon Mr. Brown's motives, which I am sure were honourable, he has been found by the courts to have acted contrary to law in using greater strength than necessary, and the Home Secretary is not in a position to find otherwise.