§ Lords Amendment: No. 9, in page 20, line 23, leave out subsections (4) and (5).
§ Mr. SharplesI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
§ The Amendment removes the provision requiring the intervention of the Director of Public Prosecutions—or, in Northern Ireland, the Attorney-General—before a case can be dealt with on indictment. We discussed this matter on Report, when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Havers) raised this point, as did the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan). The result was this Amendment being tabled in another place.
§ Mr. Elystan MorganMy hon. Friends and I are grateful to the Minister for this Amendment. It means that it is no longer necessary, before a prosecution on indictment is proceeded with, to have the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I understand that since 1923 it has been necessary in these cases to have the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions or the Attorney-General.
There is only one point in this context which I would be grateful if the Minister would consider. While we accept that things have changed greatly since 1923, when there were comparatively few drugs and poisons offences, the discretion that is rightly vested in chief officers of police is very wide. It is a discretion which I am sure the House will agree is, by and large, not abused, but every now and then a chief officer of police will, in a fallible world, perhaps in an act of aberration, bring about a prosecution in circumstances when it is wholly unreasonable to do so.
I am sure that the House will have in mind a case which occurred some two or three years ago, when a person who was a clerk in holy orders was delivering an address in the pulpit on the dangers of drug abuse and held up a phial which contained a white powder. He was later prosecuted on account of that, and this 520 was the subject of a free pardon a year or two ago. I appreciate that this applies only to indictable offences, since it was never necessary to have this consent in relation to non-indictable prosecutions, nevertheless one can envisage a situation when, perhaps, a mistake might be made in the future and a prosecution on indictment brought, say, against the parents of a boy or a young man who habitually persists in smoking cannabis in the home. The parents are perhaps torn between motives, on the one hand, and trying to do that which is right by society and reporting the matter to the police, and, on the other hand, of not wishing to see their son incriminated.
It would be right if the Home Office were to consider giving some guidance to chief officers of police in relation to family matters such as these, for such cases will probably be on the increase in the future.
I do not expect the Minister to reply to that point now, but I should be grateful if he would bear it in mind.
§ Mr. SharplesWith the permission of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I reply to the hon. Gentleman? I should like to consider carefully the helpful suggestion which he has made.
§ Question put and agreed to.