§ Sir M. HaversI beg to move Amendment No. 94, in page 36, line 3, at end insert:
'(4) A person who maliciously threatens otherwise than by letter or writing to kill or murder any person is guilty of an offence'.This amendment concerns threats to which judges, counsel, jurors, police officers and others concerned in some way or other with the enforcement of the law —for example, in IRA cases—have been subject over the telephone.I raised this matter in Committee when the new bomb-hoax was brought in. I do not want to go into the details; it is too late to do that. This is a serious matter which causes grave anxiety not only to the person threatened but to his wife and family. If it is a hoax it causes a great waste of police time. If it is genuine it is even more serious.
I have sought to take out of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 the words which used to apply to the sending of a letter threatening to kill. It now appears with a sentence of five years in the bomb-hoax clause, unlike the 10 years' sentence for the letter offence. This is so obviously sensible that I hope that the Minister will accept it.
§ Mr. JohnIt is anomalous that, whereas written threats to murder are offences under the 1861 Act, for obvious reasons the antiquity of that Act prevents telephone calls threatening the same thing from being offences. I am therefore prepared to accept the amendment, subject to two caveats. The first is that we should be able to consider the drafting before the Bill returns to the House of Lords. The second is that the amendment should not prejudice the general codification of the law in this field currently being undertaken by the Law Revision Committee.
§ Amendment agreed to.