HL Deb 09 April 1986 vol 473 cc278-300

8.38 p.m.

Lord Paget of Northampton rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they accept that within a free society the media have the right and duty to invigilate the judicial system and to bring miscarriages of justice to public attention and whether they recognise that it is the duty of government to guard this liberty.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the question of the role of the press and of the courts in our system of liberty is rather a large one. I regret that it should come before the House at this hour in such a narrow form, but that is the way that things work.

Our famous jury system is something of an historical muddle. Originally, trial was by ordeal. The accused appealed to God and accepted God's verdict as expressed by fire, water or jury. To question the verdict smelt of heresy. Fire, water and, for that matter, battle went a bit out of fashion and judges pressed men to choose jury. They had to choose it. They were pressed with heavy weights until they did so or they died. Until the beginning of this century there was no appeal. The man had chosen jury and that was God's verdict.

The need for appeal resulted from the growth of a free press. Miscarriages of justice came to be reported with embarrassing frequency. In the latter part of the last century 50 Bills were introduced proposing courts of criminal appeal. All the judges as a body opposed them. "Take it from us", said the judges, "any measure that recognises the fallibility of British justice cannot but be subversive". The press may not have been the ideal court of last resource, but it was the only one. It still is. It alone can invigilate justice, bring it before the people and see what is happening. But for all this, it took a scandal to move the judges.

Adolph Beck was the case. Adolph Beck was convicted of crimes against women in the name of George Smith. He protested his innocence. He denied being George Smith. He had important friends who knew that he was not George Smith. The Home Office was petitioned. A bright lad minuted, "Smith, when he was last in prison, was registered as a circumcised Jew. Should we have a look at this chap?" They did and he was not. Within a month, he was back again as Smith and there appeared to be no machinery to get him out. That was ridiculous. The press had a carnival. Sketches of Beck and Smith appeared in all the newspapers. They in no way resembled each other and something had to be done.

It was thus that the Court of Criminal Appeal was born. It was a compromise and a misnomer. It was not a court of appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeal has never been a court of appeal. For centuries, quarter sessions had heard appeals from justices and reheard all the evidence. They had proved good courts. But the new Court of Criminal Appeal was rarely allowed to hear any evidence at all. It could have been of no help whatever to Beck.

It is the court of the Lord Chief Justice. That, in my view, is bad. Power corrupts and there is no power more corrosive than that of a chief criminal judge. When revolution comes, he is the most hated instrument of the fallen tyranny. Lord Chancellors are quite different. They are drawn from the same class as thrusting political lawyers but they come here, this noble House cuts them down to size and they become quite human. One became a saint. Lord Justices have no bigger fleas to bite them.

I remember an old leader observing after a bruising day in the Court of Criminal Appeal, "I have noticed it before, Reggie. The Office of Lord Chief Justice brings out the very worst in a man." Under a series of Lord Chief Justices, the original function of the Court of Criminal Appeal, which was to correct miscarriages, was forgotten. The court confined itself to points of law. Unfortunately, guilt or innocence is not a point of law.

It was the failure of the Court of Criminal Appeal that provoked some great men to do its job for it; Lord Gardiner—to me, always the guiding star of my profession—Lord Shawcross, Lord Elwyn-Jones, Sir John Foster and Lord Simon of Glaisdale with, for 25 years, the redoubtable Tom Sargent JP as secretary. This council of Justice has secured the release of some 25 victims of miscarriage of justice—far more than Voltaire and his friends ever achieved in earning their huge reputations.

In later years, its efforts have been reinforced by Peter Hill and Martin Young of the BBC. In a series of documentaries entitled "Rough Justice" the masses were given the opportunity to form their own judgments and the infallibility of the law was challenged. The Court of Criminal Appeal, the police and, to a lesser degree, the Home Office fought back. They not only refused the investigators all co-operation, but they obstructed without scruple all efforts to elicit the truth. This is a grave charge. To substantiate it, we must look at the "Rough Justice" cases. Transcripts are obtainable. Time permits me but one—R. v. Mycock. But, before coming to that, I should like to refer to one other case handled by the same police just to show the kind of behaviour which Mr. Hill and Mr. Young had learned to expect from authority: that is, the McDonough case.

There had been a fight in a brothel. Two Irish gypsies named McDonough had been convicted of murder. Justice had asked the BBC team to investigate. Hill and Young came to the conclusion that the real murderer was a Jamaican who worked as the establishment's No. 1 pimp. At the trial, all the girls were kept in line by the Jamaican and told the same story, but when he moved their minds started to change. Sheila, who had been the Jamaican's mistress, told the BBC that on the fatal night he had come into their room covered with blood and said that he had killed a man. Two more girls were found and supported the story. After seeing this evidence, the Parole Board, including a High Court judge, ordered immediate release and the McDonoughs were, and still are, released. But this was not enough. Someone else had committed the murder. It was not the McDonoughs. They require acquittal and compensation.

The Home Office ordered Manchester police to investigate. The police idea of investigation was to find Sheila, visit her in force at midnight with 12 policemen and tell her that if she went back on the story she had told in court they would see to it that she went to gaol for nine years for perjury. She telephoned Hill, who telephoned Tom Sargent, who went to see her, prepared a sworn statement as to what had happened and took it to the Home Office. The Home Office—I suppose on the theory that anybody else will take the buck—referred the case back to the Court of Criminal Appeal.

The girls, when asked to give evidence, most sensibly consulted a solicitor, who, again most sensibly, advised them that they needed a grant of immunity. This was refused. The Court of Criminal Appeal were in full possession of the facts on which the Parole Board had already acted, but they accepted the police decision to refuse the girls an indemnity and dismissed the appeal on the ground that there was no new evidence. What sort of investigators were those whose first idea was to scare off the witnesses; what sort of court was it which consented to be denied the evidence? This was the moment for the Lord Chief Justice to say, as he was subsequently to say to Hill and Young, "I order these girls to be brought before me".

I now come to the Mycock case. It began when a Miss Anne Fitzpatrick complained that two men had broken into her flat. She said that they had entered through the kitchen window, had threatened her with death if she screamed, had bound her ankles and wrists together in front of her, had carried her downstairs and deposited her in front of a kitchen door which was open on to the pavement and had left without shutting the door or gagging her. It was raining. She claimed then to have rolled out of the kitchen and down the pavement to the door of her neighbour Miss Praw, where she rang the bell several times. Later she was asked how she managed to do this with her hands bound to her ankles and she tried to demonstrate unsuccessfully.

Later still, on her last visit to the witness box, she changed her evidence and said that her hands had been tied behind her. Whether this made the bell ringing more plausible, I doubt. Miss Praw eventually came down and saw Anne crouched on the doorstep. She took the story of the two men with a large pinch of salt, but she went back to get some scissors with which to cut the rope. Those who have tried to cut nylon rope with scissors will sympathise with her difficulties. Eventually, Anne got up and asked to be taken to her parents about 500 yards down the road. The parents, who were used to Anne's stories, were unsympathetic and told the girls to go home. On the way they hailed a police car. The police took them home.

It is now that mystery enters the case. According to a letter from Mr. Caffarey at the Home Office: As a result of information received, police enquiries led them to two brothers, Anthony and Gary Mycock". We have no information as to what it actually was that started the search for the brothers. It certainly was not Anne's description, for this resembled neither.

A day or two later Anne dropped in on a neighbour's shop and saw a girl arranging photos. Suddenly she cried out, "My God, that's him", and most positively identified the subject of one of the photos as being her assailant. He was a boy of 18. He was quite a close friend of Anne's younger brother. His name she was told was Wayne Mycock. She went and told the police who came to see the photo. It was clear that their only interest in Wayne was that his name was Mycock. They arrested him at 7 a.m. and released him, cleared, five hours later. He was no relation to and was unacquainted with the brothers Mycock.

Why did Anne identify Wayne? Anne had already been shown police photos and asked if she recognised her assailant. They had included a photograph of Wayne but at that point she had not recognised him. The Mycocks that the police were interested in were Anthony and Gary. We know they had Anthony's photo because he was on a suspended sentence. Why when they were showing Anne photos did they show her Wayne and not Anthony? Surely the probability is that they did show her Anthony and that this helped when it came to the identification parade. This was some days later. It was not a very good identification parade. Anthony was 10 years older—27 years of age—than any of the other exhibits, all of whom were students at the local college. She picked out Anthony.

Anne's identification was the whole evidence on which Anthony was convicted. There was no corroboration of any kind. He was convicted solely upon Anne's word that he was her assailant. Anthony had an alibi. He had, with the valued assistance of his niece aged 13, been painting the bathroom. Relation alibis do not go well with juries. He was given five years. An application for leave to appeal concentrated on the discrepancies between Anthony's appearance and Anne's description and the failure of the identity parade to comply with the rules. The Court of Criminal Appeal, recognised the difficulties and dangers in cases of this sort but found that the jury had been carefully and properly warned about these dangers and it was therefore a matter for them to decide whether guilt was proven". It reminds me tremendously of a direction given by the magistrate in Albert and the Lion which Lord Goddard used sometimes to recite: Nobody seemed to blame".

What the court failed to recognise was that the evidence had been inadequate to support any sort of conviction, but leave to appeal was refused. Justice brought in the BBC, Martin Young and Peter Hill, and demonstrated once again how unfit the Court of Criminal Appeal is to do its job. It did not, for instance, take the two journalists long to find out, first, that Anne was a notorious fantasist and that neither Miss Praw nor Miss Marshall, both of whom knew her well, believed that a burglary had taken place, and that the landlord and Anne's own father were of like mind; and that she was known locally as Schizo-Annie.

Secondly, that the identification parade had consisted of students from a local college. Thirdly, that Miss Praw's statement had never been properly taken; that it was raining quite hard and Anne was wearing pyjamas when she claimed to have rolled along the pavement, but save for a wet patch on the seat they were dry; that Miss Praw had not succeeded in cutting the rope when freeing Anne—the rope had just fallen off in one piece when shaken, and was produced in court in one piece; that the only footstep on the window sill of the kitchen window which Anne had pointed out as the robber's means of ingress had in fact been made a week before by Anne herself when Miss Praw had helped her in on an occasion when she had lost her keys. Fourthly, that no stolen goods had been found to connect Mycock with the robbery. Fifthly, that no statement had been taken from Miss Marshall who was the owner of the goods Anne had reported stolen; and finally, that Anne had bunked to California.

It was now that the BBC decided to follow the lady. Were they right? They had provided evidence which no impartial authority had any right to reject; and authority had rejected it. It was no isolated instance. In a series of cases in which they had been concerned, authority had obstructed justice and had refused to accept it. Mycock's last appeal had been rejected. Only the people could save Mycock now.

Anne had invented a burglary. In so far as you can ever prove a negative, this they had proved. If Mycock was to be saved, Anne must be made to tell the truth. Were they right? My answer is that Mycock is free. It was Anne's public confession on the TV that forced the Home Office to order an appeal which they had refused. It was evidence obtained by the journalists that compelled a reluctant court to free Mycock. Without Anne's confession, could this have ever happened? Would it not still be a case of, "The Home Secretary could find nothing to justify his intervention"? We are told that the end does not justify the means. If it does not, what the hell does? What is the point of a means that does not have an end to justify it? I find an innocent man returned to his family a pretty good end. The journalists found Anne. She had got to California on a passport she had reported stolen and on a visa obtained under false pretences. She was living in cohabitation on a job as a nanny which she obtained on false references supplied by her sister. This has always struck me as her worst crime. I can think of few things more awful than to find that I had been cheated into entrusting my child to a woman like Anne.

When they found Anne they told her the truth. They said that as a result of their inquiries they were satisfied that the burglary for which Mycock was in gaol and to which she had sworn had never happened. They said that they were determined to right the wrong which not only had been but was being done and that she had an option. Either Anne could confess the truth and make any excuses she liked in the TV interview, or they would put before the public all that they had found out about her and leave the public and the people to decide whether they believed her or Mycock.

What was wrong with this? It put pressure on Anne, certainly. Her resulting confession was not free and could not be accepted as evidence in court. Certainly; but the journalists were not collecting evidence for a court. They had been refused leave to appeal to a court. They were making a documentary to place before the viewing public. Everything they said to Anne they recorded, and they delivered that record to their employers and to the court.

On 3rd October the film was shown. It included a recording of Anne's confession that the robbery was a figment of her imagination. The result was sensational. The Home Secretary made urgent inquiries of the Manchester police. The police interviewed Miss Praw and Miss Marshall who had appeared in the film. Someone—I do not know who—was sent to California to turn Anne round. Unlike the BBC they have disclosed no tape recording of their investigations, which is sad because those negotiations must have been very interesting.

Anne was persuaded to return to England, where, on her own story, she had clearly been guilty of perjury, theft, conversion of Miss Marshall's goods to the value of £450 and of conspiracy. How was the trick worked. Was she given an indemnity? It is worth remembering how these same police behaved when Sheila Ecclestone wished to change some evidence she had given against the McDonoughs. There was no indemnity for her but a threat of nine years in gaol if she dared to change her story. Money seems to have been of little object. Not only was Anne brought back but her girlfriend, too, came for the ride. Was Anne in addition paid compensation? It would appear that a great deal more money is available when the purpose is to cover up a mistake than when it is to correct one.

After her return it emerged that nothing had been stolen by Mycock or any other burglar and that the thief had been Anne herself. She had stolen and sold her friend's property. Nothing else was missing. Mycock's counsel advised that since Anne's confession in California had not been free he would be unable to use it and that he had no intention of attempting to do so. At this point the events in California became wholly irrelevant to the issue which had been referred to the Court of Appeal. That was the guilt of Mycock, and nothing else. Neither counsel for the Crown nor counsel for the appellant had any wish to call either Hill or Young, and neither they nor the BBC nor Justice, were represented or had any notice.

This did not suit the Lord Chief Justice. He had been infuriated, one suspects, by the all too successful efforts of the amateurs to correct the errors of his court. He thought that he had the journalists across a barrel and he was determined to lay on them. Mycock's appeal became a forum in which to condemn them. He insisted on their being called for judicial examination. Out of 185 pages of evidence no less than 64 record this irrelevant pillorying of the media and nearly half the judgment is devoted to condemnation of the men they ought to have been thanking; the men who had on this and on other occasions saved justice.

The Lord Chief Justice was not even doing this in his own time. It was Mycock's trial he was presiding over. I can only describe this performance as an abuse of judicial privilege. The misuse of privilege to libel the unprivileged is equally to be condemned whether that privilege be judicial or parliamentary. The jurisdiction of judges is confined by the pleadings. They have no authority to pontificate on the conduct of other professions. The jurisdiction here belonged to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. Here the journalists would have been entitled to notice in writing and to representation.

When he came to the relevant evidence the judge reluctantly (his own word) found that conviction based solely upon the uncorroborated evidence of Anne could not stand. Then, reverting to the irrelevant, he went out of his way to reject what he described as the main point of the BBC's case—the proposition that there never had been a burglary. To do this he had to accept Anne's word, which was not only—

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, I hate to interrupt the noble Lord when he has spoken for some considerable time in moving his case, but he is referring in great detail to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice, who is, of course, not here to respond in any way to what the noble Lord is saying. I shall return to this theme, no doubt, when I wind up, but I hope that the noble Lord realises he has made some fairly serious allegations on different aspects of public life and about people who are not able to defend themselves.

Lord Paget of Northampton

My Lords, I have of course considered that matter, and I have given notice. The Lord Chief Justice is not here, and that is his choice.

To do this the judge had to accept Anne's word, which was not only uncorroborated but was false on every checkable point. The burglars had not entered by the kitchen window; the burglars had taken nothing; there had been no robbery; they had not tied her up; the rope was not tied; they had not rolled her on a wet pavement; not even the dog had barked. It involved preferring Anne's evidence to that of Mrs. Mycock, her niece, and, last but not least, Mr. Mycock, who had by now become the forgotten man in his own trial. In my submission a finding of this sort is simply perverse.

The Lord Chief Justice sought to support it, not on the evidence but by an adventure into psychiatry—a subject of which I think he knew little. He says that he might have accepted that Anne could invent a burglary to spite Miss Marshall but not that she would 10 days later identify a fictitious burglar. This, he says, would have been a wicked thing to do. That is as it may be, but it is certainly just the sort of thing that fantasists do. Fantasists are people of faith. They have the capacity to believe things which on another level they know to be untrue. In the words of Anne's own doctor: If I read her behaviour with any degree of accuracy, she would have believed in such story that she might tell despite there being no ground for it except her own troubled imagination". That was said by her own doctor. On one level Anne lived in a fantasy which was more real to her than life. If there was a burglary of course there must be a burglar, and she must pick him out. She not only picked out Anthony, but she picked out Wayne. Really, the Lord Chief Justice cannot have a lady corroborating herself by making not only one but two false identifications. It is a perversion of logic.

The media may not be the ideal commission of review, but it is the only one we have got. If we permit journalists to be intimidated by the judiciary, not only do we cease to have a free press but we remove the last hope of that not inconsiderable proportion of our long-term prisoners who are there because they were wrongly convicted.

When this trouble happened, "Rough Justice" already had a list of cases which Tom Sargent had asked them to investigate. What is happening about these? The Home Affairs Committee in another place have advised unanimously that, in cases where there is reason to fear that a miscarriage of justice has taken place, the matter should be investigated by an independent body that had had no part in the original prosecution. That recommendation must be accepted.

Where are we to find this independent body? We already have it in the council of Justice. It would work largely with retired judges and police officers and it would require a budget, but it would enable us to do without the Court of Criminal Appeal. Points of law would go to any other division of the appeal court. We can do without the office of LCJ. The judiciary has no need of more than one head. We could probably show a saving.

9.9 p.m.

Lord Foot

My Lords, in his remarkable speech, the noble Lord, Lord Paget, has called into question in a very grave manner the way in which, under our present dispensation, we attempt to deal with cases where there is reason to believe that there has been some miscarriage of justice in the criminal courts, and he has cited a number of cases—one, of course, in particular, being the case of Mycock—which were cases that were first brought to public attention by the society called Justice.

I happen, without any merit, currently to be the chairman of the council of Justice. I hope that it will he helpful and useful to the House if I briefly indicate how is has come about that Justice has proceeded to occupy and interest itself in individual cases of miscarriage of justice. Justice was established some 29 years ago. Next year we shall be celebrating our 30th anniversary. It is a society of lawyers of all kinds. It is a society without any party affiliations, and indeed one which is very anxious that all parties should be represented upon its council. It is a society whose prime objective from the beginning has been to uphold the rule of law and indeed to try to make better the administration of the law in all its aspects, to make it fairer and more just, and indeed to make sure that the protection of the law is available to people of all kinds and conditions.

In pursuit of those objectives, over the years it has carried out a great number of studies of different aspects of our legal system. It has set up countless committees of inquiry, all serviced by volunteers, in order to consider these different aspects and different specific problems. It has published reports from time to time, which I think I can safely say have led to a number of very useful reforms, and it has given evidence before a variety of commissions and committees of inquiry. In addition, it has sought to monitor legislation passing through Parliament in order to ensure that that legislation does in fact comply with our desire to uphold the rule of law.

Side by side with all that, almost from the beginning we have been involved in individual cases of alleged miscarriage of justice. As the noble Lord, Lord Paget, has rightly said, the chief reason why Justice adopted the consideration of these particular individual cases was due to the enterprise and the initiative of Mr. Tom Sargent, who was the devoted secretary of the society for 25 years. He occupied himself consistently, with great persistence, patience and great determination, in examining the cases which were brought to his attention where he thought that there was some merit in the suggestion that there had indeed been a miscarriage of justice. As a result we in Justice are able to claim the credit for a long series of investigations into alleged miscarriages of justice.

I am glad to say that in some cases, as indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Paget, we have been successful in overturning wrongful convictions. I have to say, however, that the work of dealing with cases of this kind has been laborious, often frustrating and sometimes, sadly, of no avail. One of the by-products of our activities is that we have acquired what must be a unique understanding and a unique experience of the failure under our present system, a failure that occurs all too often, by way of justice miscarrying.

Many people have argued, and argue today, that the primary cause of miscarriages of justice in our criminal courts is our adversarial system. All too often, it is argued, the parties to the proceedings are engaged in a battle of wits in which the main object is to win the case, with the result that the real interest of truth and justice may suffer. That criticism of our present dispensation is, I believe, acquiring more and more support as time goes by. My view is that the critics of the adversarial system and the people who want to put in its place some form of inquisitorial system, such as that in France and elsewhere, have still a long way to go before they can satisfy the people of this country that our traditional methods of trial of criminal cases should be overturned altogether.

Having said that, it is clear that there are improvements that can be made and precautions that can be taken against miscarriage of justice within the context of our present criminal justice trial system. Chief of those perhaps is what has fortunately, at long last, been achieved—the introduction of an independent prosecuting service. Justice has been asking for this to be done for more than 20 years. We take great satisfaction that at long last it has been accomplished.

Having said that about our trial system, let me say that, for present purposes, I am more concerned about the problems that arise following a conviction that is subject to suspicion and the problems that arise, as they often do, when the appeal system such as we have is exhausted. There has been perhaps a refusal of leave to appeal, or an appeal has been rejected, when it still appears that there may have been a grave miscarriage of justice. It is usually at that long, late stage that the matter comes within the purview of Justice. It comes to us when it would appear that the whole thing is over. Our endeavour often is to try to reopen the case from the adverse position in which we find ourselves.

The problems of reopening such a case are formidable indeed. Usually, the only way forward at all is to try to get the Home Office itself to reopen the case or possibly to refer it back, and, if this has already been done, to refer it again, to the Court of Criminal Appeal. To establish a prima facie case of that kind to the satisfaction of the Home Office is beset with difficulties of a major order. Often there will be the need to make inquiries in order to establish some prima facie case for the Home Office to consider. Often it will be necessary to search for, interview and take statements from witnesses. It may be necessary to pursue a long trail of inquiry before one is in a position to present to the Home Office a satisfactory prima facie case for reconsideration. Justice has neither the manpower nor the financial resources to enable it to make such elaborate inquiries.

That being so what can be done? One can invite the Home Office to institute an inquiry of its own. That is often a quite sterile process. We are told either that there is no justification for it; that there is no new evidence which it is proper for the Home Office to consider; or—and this is possibly the worst way of dealing with the matter—when we complain about a conviction and invite the Home Office to make an inquiry, all too often the inquiry is put into the hands of the same police force that was responsible for the prosecution in the first place. That is not only unfair to the victim but is also unfair to the police that they should be asked to make an impartial examination into the way in which they themselves presented the prosecution in the first place.

Justice, together with other organisations, has been arguing for a long time that what is mainly wanted here is the introduction of some independent body or independent element into the process of application to the Home Office, an independent body which could properly scrutinise such cases. That is the proposition which back in 1982 we made to the Home Office committee of the House of Commons which made a special examination of this question of miscarriages of justice.

I am glad to say that our representation was accepted unanimously by that very distinguished committee. Perhaps I might be allowed to quote to the House the terms in which that committee recommended the matter to the Home Office. Under the heading of "An independent Review Body", having marshalled and considered the arguments which had been advanced, it said this: Our main concern is that those cases which, following the initial sifting process, are thought by the Home Office to contain some substance, and in particular those involving a custodial sentence, should receive as thorough and expert a scrutiny as possible. We are convinced that there is a strong argument in favour of the introduction of an independent element at this stage, and that it is unreasonable that the Home Secretary should be expected to decide whether to grant a free pardon or to remit a sentence on the advice of his officials alone. Sentences in respect of road traffic and similar offences which were the result of some technical mistake should in our view be quickly disposed of by referring the matter back to the magistrates' court who would be asked formally to quash the conviction. We recommend however that all other petitions which have not been rejected at the preliminary stage by the Home Office, either on the grounds that no relevant new evidence has been presented since the court hearing or because the normal channels of appeal have not been exhausted, should be referred to an independent review body charged with advising the Home Secretary on his exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy". It is difficult to imagine a more convincing and authoritative recommendation than that. However, it was rejected and we are back where we have been for the last 25 years.

From the beginning Justice has been limited in what it can do by the limitation on its resources. It was that which largely led to the collaboration between Justice and the BBC in the series of programmes under the title "Rough Justice". That collaboration represented an important advance for three reasons in particular.

First, the resources of the BBC to investigate a matter of this kind were vastly greater than anything that could be put together by Justice. The second great advantage was that for the first time this grave social problem—and there surely can be nothing more repugnant to a free democratic society than the thought of innocent people being convicted and incarcerated wrongly—was brought to the attention of a large public. That on its own had the effect of giving far greater weight in the eyes of the Home Office and the other authorities concerned to the representations that were being made. Thirdly, happily, there were a number of occasions when, as a result of that collaboration, wrongful convictions of innocent people were indeed overturned.

In conclusion, as the chairman of the council of Justice, I welcome the opportunity of putting on record that these happy results have been largely due to the zeal and determination shown in the cause of justice by Mr. Young and Mr. Hill. That is all that I want to say, and I hope that when the Minister rises to reply he may be able to give us some indication that the attitude of the Home Offfice for the future will not perhaps be as rigid as it has been in the past.

9.27 p.m.

Lord Denning

My Lords, I listened with sadness and dismay to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Paget, in which he condemned the system of justice in this country and in particular the Lord Chief Justice of England. I regard it as an abuse of parliamentary privilege that the noble Lord should scandalise the courts of justice in this way in this House when, if it was done outside, it would undoubtedly be a contempt of court and punishable accordingly.

In support of our judicial system I wish to say that our judges, our juries and all those who collect evidence do the very best they can. The jurors decide cases as fairly as they can on the evidence before them. It is utterly wrong for an organisation, whether it is Justice or the BBC, or for my noble friend to say that a decision is wrong and call it rough justice, and bring case after case to prove that we do not practise justice in this country. It is only due to the Lord Chief Justice and our judges that I should speak thus plainly.

Unfortunately in any system there are bound to be occasional mistakes and occasional miscarriages. That is why in a way after the Adolph Beck case we had the Court of Appeal, which is gradually widening its jurisdiction not only into law but into facts. If special matters are brought before the Home Office, the Home Secretary can order or ask the Court of Appeal to review them.

In view of what the House of Commons Committee said, I should like to repeat what the Government said, which seems to me to be an absolute answer. They said: The Government agree with the Committee on the need to ensure that alleged miscarriages of justice are thoroughly and authoritatively examined. Ministers consider that as a matter of constitutional principle it should primarily be for the courts and the judicial process to review convictions and, if necessary, upset them". That is the way to do it. Review it in the Court of Appeal if need be, but let it not be reviewed, if you please, by the media or tried by the newspapers. We do not allow trial by newspapers: why should we allow review of convictions by newspapers and the media?

Let their material be put before the Home Office, let Justice do it, but not collaborate with the BBC in trying to decry our system of justice in this country and calling it "rough justice". It is nothing of the kind, The Lord Chief Justice was quite right, having heard all the evidence.

We know what "Rough Justice" was. It was a deplorable programme. It was a series evidently prepared in collaboration with that organisation called Justice. It covered four years of investigative journalism designed to investigate the cases of convicted men and to show that they were innocent and wrongly convicted.

In that particular case, after the woman had given evidence in the court and been believed by a jury, and there was no great cross-examination and everything like that, two investigators tried to get her to change her evidence. This is what the Lord Chief Justice said—and I would rely on his view rather than a partial view such as has been put before us: Our view is that the interview methods adopted by the two investigators were outrageous, culminating in a thinly-veiled threat to expose Miss Fitzpatrick as a lesbian". The Lord Chief Justice gave a warning that: investigation by menaces more often than not could have the opposite effect than what was intended. We hope that such discreditable behaviour will never be repeated. What was particularly distasteful was the enlistment of an eminent retired judge, Lord Devlin, to give credence to the proposal". That is what the Lord Chief Justice said about this method of investigation. I would much rather rely on the view of the Lord Chief Justice of England, having heard the evidence, than the strictures of my noble friend.

May I say how undesirable this is? After the men have been tried and convicted by a jury, and gone to the Court of Appeal, what do they do? They go to the witnesses in that very case. They get them to alter their testimony, if you like, by menaces, or sometimes by bribes; going behind the backs of the courts and interviewing those very witnesses; or going to new witnesses who could have been called for the prosecution or the defence, and getting up the whole case again and retrying it by this one-sided body who are only too anxious to say something about the courts and our system of justice.

How far are they to go with their investigative journalism? Are they to go and ask the jurors, as in that Jeremy Thorpe case? The New Statesman went and asked some jurors why they came to their conclusion, what views they had, and so on. Is that to be allowed with this investigative journalism? Are you to be allowed to go around all the witnesses in a case and cross-examine them again?

Lord Foot

My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord give way? in any of the cases which have been investigated by Justice, or indeed by the BBC, is he asserting that in any single case there is any evidence that anybody tried to interview the jury?

Lord Denning

No, my Lords, I mentioned the jury not Justice. I was only saying generally that I dislike altogether the methods of investigative journalism where, after a case is decided in the court, the jounalists try to reinvestigate it themselves. I was only saying that troubles arise with this kind of investigative journalism for the sake of sensationalism, when the proper machinery is to report the matter to the Home Office and to the Home Secretary so that they can consider it.

I am seeking to defend the system of justice in this land. Anything which lessens the confidence of the people in our system of justice is a great drawback. This Question is put before us. I disagree entirely that the media have a right to invigilate, so to speak, our system of courts and justice and, as they would say, expose it to public view. If anyone suspects a miscarriage of justice let it be reported to the Home Secretary, but do not let us have it tried in public like this, accusing the courts of injustice all the time.

I hope the Government will stand firm by the principles that I have stated. The review of convictions is primarily a matter for the courts themselves when the matter is drawn to their attention. It is not in the province of outside media and the like. I hope the Government will stand firm and resist this attack that has been made upon our judges and upon our system.

9.37 p.m.

Lord Silkin of Dulwich

My Lords, I begin by saying that I was extremely pleased to listen to the moderate and persuasive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, which, if I may say so with all respect to two old friends of mine, came between two speeches that tended to go to extremes in opposite directions. I do not think that the valid case which my noble friend Lord Paget had was made better by going to extremes. As put by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, it was much more persuasive.

What the noble Lord put to the House, as I understood it, was that there are in our procedures failures in the present system to deal with miscarriages of justice. That is undoubtedly right and we have had many examples. He told the House that the purpose of the body known as Justice is not and never has been to consider individual cases. That was the new task which Mr. Sargent, for whom I have every possible praise, took upon himself personally because he could see that nobody else was carrying out that function. The noble Lord made the point that Justice took that task upon its shoulders with the assistance of Mr. Sargent because there appeared to be no other body capable of carrying out the job. That was a failure of our present system.

The noble Lord made the further point quite properly that, despite the support of a wide range of progressive liberal lawyers and judges of all parties and none, it was only because Justice as a body does not have resources to do its job properly that it became necessary to enlist the help of the BBC. I am certain that neither the noble Lord nor I myself thinks that that is a job that constitutionally ought to fall upon a body like the BBC. I doubt whether the BBC would think that a job of that kind ought to be given to it because of a lack of the necessary machinery within our constitutional system.

Whatever may have been said, whether justly or unjustly, by the two journalists concerned in the particular case upon which my noble friend Lord Paget of Northampton dwelt, I myself had experience of their investigations in another case in which I thought they dealt with the matter very thoughtfully and carefully, and they were able to discover and to present material showing that a substantial part of the prosecution evidence in that case was plainly wrong. I shall have a word about that case later on because I think that it illustrates a failure in the system, although not because I wish to criticise the way in which the case was dealt with. However, it is clear that because of the investigation of the BBC and its portrayal of the facts as a result of that investigation on the screen, and because of the representations which were then made to the Home Office Minister, Mr. Mellor—and to him, also, I have nothing but praise to give, because it seems to me, having taken part in the representations, that he was a very worried man and dealt sympathetically with the difficulties of the matter—the position was that this case went before the Court of Appeal, and no sooner had it gone before the Court of Appeal than the prosecution totally withdrew a major part of the evidence on which it had secured a conviction in the court of trial.

The particular difficulty that I see in the present procedure—and the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has drawn attention to other matters which in my view are perfectly valid—is that there seems to be a very real gap between the position of the Home Secretary as he sees his powers and those of the court, and the position of the Court of Appeal as it sees its powers.

Before the Criminal Appeal Act of 1968 the main ground for appealing to the Court of Criminal Appeal (as it then was) was, in the words of the relevant section, to require the Court of Criminal Appeal to allow the appeal if it thought that the verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that it was unreasonable or could not be supported having regard to the evidence. That wording was thought to be unsatisfactory wording.

The problem of the wording was considered thoroughly by the committee presided over by the late Lord Donovan. It reported that it was unsatisfactory wording. As a result, it was duly changed. In the Criminal Appeal Act 1968—and this afternoon, looking back at the report of the debate, I was gratified to see that in another place I took part in the Second Reading debate on that provision—the new wording provided that the finding of the jury should be set aside on the ground that under all the circumstances of the case it was unsafe or unsatisfactory. That was a very much less restricted form of wording than the previous form of wording.

I have no doubt that those of us who took part in the legislation in 1968 were of the view that this new wording would give to the Court of Appeal, and would be seen to be giving to the Court of Appeal, a very wide power indeed to look at the evidence upon which a jury had convicted and to ask itself whether that evidence was safe and satisfactory or unsafe and unsatisfactory.

I have taken the view in various cases that the Court of Appeal—and I am not suggesting that it is wrong in law, for that is not my purpose—has taken a narrower view of those words than I would wish to take. It is because it has taken a narrower view and because, as I understand it, the Home Office and successive Home Secretaries, perhaps perfectly properly, have taken the view that they should not tread upon the toes of the Court of Appeal, that this gap seems to me to exist between the powers of the one as seen by the Home Secretary and the powers of the Court of Appeal as seen by the Court of Appeal.

When I was Attorney-General, the then Home Secretary in one case in particular resolved this difficult position by using the prerogative which he has of recommending that two men should be released because he felt that he could not, in the circumstances of the case (whatever he might feel about the facts) contradict the Court of Appeal. I think that there had been three references to the Court of Appeal, all of which had been unsuccessful. But the Home Secretary was convinced, as indeed I was on the appeal before me, that it would be unreasonable to keep in custody the men concerned any longer than the time that they had spent. Whether he acted rightly or whether I acted rightly in advising him that this was something that he could do is a matter no doubt which can be argued about; but it appeared to be the only way of closing that gap, and that is the difficulty that I see.

I now turn to the case which I have in mind and which I discussed with Mr. Mellor. He, as I said, was most sympathetic and probably as helpful as he could possibly be, not, again I emphasise, in order to suggest that mistakes were made by the court when the matter was eventually referred to the Court of Appeal but to illustrate the gap which I see as existing. This was the case of a man who was convicted of murder. Obviously I do not wish to go into too much detail, but the brief facts were that a young girl had been murdered some ten years earlier. The precise time or date of death was never established. The body had been dissected and part put into a tank at the defendant's place of work. It had been put in from the top, which involved a climb encumbered by the body.

The defendant was on duty on the morning after the girl had last been seen. He admitted that he knew the girl but, from first to last, when seen by the police, he denied that he had killed her. Evidence was given that others employed at that place did not know the girl and there was, it is fair to say, no evidence to the contrary. It is fair comment that if there was a guilty person among them he would not be likely to admit that he did know the girl.

On the evidence thus far, could it be said that a jury would be sure of the defendant's guilt? It seems to me that one could not possibly say that on the evidence so far. However, a fellow worker gave evidence—this was ten years after the disappearance of the girl—of suspicious actions by the defendant about the time of the murder, as though he were hiding something. As a result of that, the police dug up around the tanks and there they found a T-shirt with sharp cuts at the back and the sleeves. There was evidence that it was the kind of clothing that the girl customarily wore. That evidence, not unnaturally, was put forward by the prosecution as being of very great significance. That is not surprising; one would expect it to be. In the light of that evidence, the defendant was convicted of murder.

The "Rough Justice" team discovered that the T-shirt must have been where it was found months before the girl disappeared. Moreover, they found that it was cut, in a way that clearly was likely to raise suspicions, by a rag merchant who supplied the works with cleaning material: that was the way the material was cut up by the rag merchant. It was when that was discovered that approaches were made to Mr. Mellor. Eventually, no doubt through his good offices, the matter was referred to the Court of Appeal. As soon as the case reached the Court of Appeal the prosecution conceded that the whole of the evidence concerning the T-shirt and the suspicious actions was misconceived, having regard to what I have said about the fact that the T-shirt must have been there long before the girl was murdered.

That part of the evidence therefore completely disappeared from the case. Nonetheless, the prosecution sought to meet the appeal on the basis that, on the other evidence, a jury could quite properly convict. The Court of Appeal dealt with the case as if the evidence concerning the T-shirt had not been given at all, and took the view that the defendant was the only person who could have murdered the girl because of the evidence that all the other people there denied knowing her. Therefore they took the view that he was rightly convicted.

The question really is whether they asked themselves the right question. I must accept—and I am not seeking to suggest that they erred in law—that the Court of Appeal did ask themselves the right question. But if they asked themselves the right question then it seems to me that the unsafe or unsatisfactory protection is a very limited one. A more expansive question would be: since the jury's mind, at the very least, may have been seriously affected by cogent and important evidence which was brought before them by the prosecution and was now being said to be quite wrong, would it be safe to let the conviction stand? I take the view that that is the right approach.

Again, I make it quite clear that I am not criticising the Court of Appeal's view of the law. I am criticising, if anything, what Parliament did in producing a formula which has led to a somewhat restricted form of words. If the Court of Appeal's view is correct, then it is there, it seems to me, that there is a very wide gap between the powers of the Home Secretary, as he sees them, and the powers of the Court of Appeal, as it regards those powers.

The question really is: how can that gap be dealt with? This debate will have been useful if it has only drawn attention once again—it is not a new problem—to the existence of the gap and to enable me to express the hope that the Home Office will give further consideration to it.

I should like to see a Home Secretary act boldly in such circumstances on the basis that the Crown is in the end the fount of justice as well as of mercy. I hope for that reason that in the particular case that I have mentioned—I shall not name it, and there are obviously similar cases—the Home Secretary will feel able to act accordingly.

However, much more important perhaps than the individual case is the way that we deal with the possibility of a miscarriage, which it seems to me this case illustrates. I say again that, if this debate has had no other purpose, I hope that it will have drawn sufficient attention to the gap and the possibility of a miscarriage for the matter to be gone into thoroughly in the future.

9.57 p.m.

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Paget, has given us an opportunity to debate a very serious and important matter. It is one which arouses strong feelings both about the principles of justice and about the role of the media in contemporary life.

The noble Lord is a respected champion of the rights of those whom he feels have been wrongly dealt with by our judicial system. I know that over the years he has tried to improve the quality of our judicial system and has done what he can to right individual abuses. However, I have to say with all respect to the noble Lord that like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, I listened with some amazement and occasionally even horror to some of the very grave allegations that the noble Lord made about the Home Office, the police and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice. I have to say with the sorrow that I share, as expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that I found some of the noble Lord's remarks intemperate and somewhat extreme. I certainly resent the suggestions that he made about the Home Office and the police. Although obviously I cannot speak for him, I am sure that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice will feel much the same about the remarks made about him. I am sure the noble Lord will reflect very carefully upon the grave remarks he made when he reads them in Hansard tomorrow.

I think that the main theme that runs through the debate is that of independence: the independence of the judicial system and the independence of the media. It is one of the most valued features of our constitution that both are independent of government and are free from the kind of interference which is—alas—all too common in some other countries.

A corollary of that is that the part which the government can play in these matters is correspondingly limited. Sometimes, ironically, it is much more limited than the proponents of particular causes—who would, in other circumstances, throw up their hands in horror at any sign of government interference—would like. I suppose that that is part of our natural tendency to want to have our cake and eat it: to preserve the independence of the judicial system, but to be able to interfere when we think that it is right to do so.

The subject of miscarriages of justice illustrates well the delicate balance that has to be maintained. The responsibilities and duties of the Home Secretary in respect of alleged miscarriages of justice are carefully delineated. An accused person's normal remedy, where it is suggested that the decision of a jury is wrong, is to go to the Court of Appeal. But in order to take account of the possibility that evidence may emerge after the normal avenues of appeal have been exhausted, suggesting that a conviction is wrong, the Home Secretary has certain powers to intervene in a case by virtue of Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, which empowers him to refer a case of a person convicted on indictment back to the Court of Appeal for determination; and that the case be treated as a fresh appeal by the convicted person to the Court of Appeal.

The noble Lord, Lord Paget, referred to the McDonough case. Referral of a case to the Court of Appeal is, I suggest, hardly passing the buck in the way that he described it. It is the due exercise of the Home Secretary's power. Having determined that there are grounds which justify referral, neither the Home Secretary nor I can comment on the conduct of the appeal. Referral is, as your Lordships know, treated as an appeal by the person concerned. I cannot comment on what the noble Lord has said this evening about the conduct of the police. My understanding is that all the representations about the case were fully considered before the Home Secretary took his decision to refer the case. There are of course channels for making complaints about alleged police misconduct, if the noble Lord feels that there are any.

In exceptional circumstances, where a reference to the Court of Appeal would not be appropriate, the Home Secretary can recommend to the sovereign the use of the royal prerogative of mercy to grant a pardon or remit the remainder of the offender's sentence.

The powers imposed on the Home Secretary also impose on him a responsibility to look into any case where there is doubt about the safety of a conviction. But in carrying out these responsibilities the Home Secretary must have regard to the independence of the judiciary from the executive. The independence of the judiciary is, as I have said, a fundamental constitutional principle. It is one to which successive Home Secretaries have always had due regard. No Home Secretary can substitute his own view for that of the courts on the basis of evidence which they have already considered or had an opportunity to consider. But it is quite proper for the Home Secretary to intervene in any case where significant new facts or considerations of substance relating to the case come to light which had not previously been available for consideration by the courts.

Of course, the media can make a contribution by marshalling evidence to enable a wrongful conviction to be put right. But I must emphasise that representations about wrongful convictions are considered on exactly the same basis whether the representations come direct from the aggrieved person, via his Member of Parliament, from one of your Lordships, from a solicitor, from the media or from any other source. Once there is reason to believe that a miscarriage of justice might have occurred, the Home Secretary will, if necessary, instigate full and urgent inquiries into the case.

This brings me to the particular case—that of Anthony Mycock—which has featured largely in this debate. As your Lordships will recall, Mr. Mycock was convicted in 1983 of robbery and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. The victim was Miss Anne Fitzpatrick who lived alone in a flat in the Manchester area. At the trial the prosecution case rested almost entirely on Miss Fitzpatrick's identification of Mr. Mycock. Mr. Mycock's defence was an alibi and mistaken identity. The jury found him guilty on a unanimous verdict. Mr. Mycock applied unsuccessfully for leave to appeal.

Representations were then made to the Home Secretary alleging that Anthony Mycock had been wrongly convicted and these were referred to the Greater Manchester police. A thorough investigation was carried out by the police into all the claims made by Mr. Mycock, but nothing arose from that investigation to justify intervention in the conviction by the Home Secretary.

The noble Lord, Lord Foot, suggested that an independent body should look at these cases. One of the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee, when it looked at miscarriages of justice in 1981–82, was that some petitions about innocence should be looked at by an independent body. As the Government said in their reply, We see no need for this". It was said then and is still believed that injustices are best corrected within the judicial system. That is why cases are referred to the Court of Appeal.

As for the Home Office conduct of cases, it is true that the Home Office is not an investigatory body. It does not investigate cases and make inquiries in the way that the police may be asked to do and that the "Rough Justice" team has done. The police are available for that task. The Home Secretary must have good grounds for referral. There must be evidence of circumstances of substance. That is not to say that a complete and fully worked out case must be presented before the Home Secretary will consider it. Far more cases—more than 2,000 a year, if equally important summary cases are included—are considered than ever reach the press and other media interests.

As your Lordships know, on 3rd October 1985 the case was featured in the BBC television programme "Rough Justice" and following it further representations were made to the Home Secretary by the organisation Justice and others. The television programme put forward the theory that the robbery of which Mr. Mycock was convicted did not in fact take place at all. An interview with Miss Fitzpatrick was shown. In it she said that the robbery did not take place, that she was emotionally upset at the time and that the incident was a figment of her imagination. In the light of this and other information, the Home Secretary asked that urgent inquiries be made by the Greater Manchester police into the points raised by the television programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Foot, suggested that perhaps a different police force should be used to carry out re-investigations. This is done where it seems appropriate, but in most cases it seems preferable in the interests of speed that the police force originally concerned with the investigation should re-examine the case. It will know it well and have its own records and papers. I do not think it right to assume that in every case where police inquiries are undertaken there has been some original police malpractice and thus it requires investigation by a new force.

Miss Fitzpatrick was interviewed by the police in California where she now lives. She said that her filmed retraction of her original evidence was not freely given. She claimed that it was the result of the pressure to which she was subjected by the makers of the "Rough Justice" programme. She told the police that what she said during the filmed interview shown on television was not true and she confirmed that she stood by her original evidence given at the trial. Nevertheless, the Home Secretary decided that, principally in view of her earlier public retraction, it was right that the Court of Appeal should have a further opportunity to review Mr. Mycock's conviction.

The case was referred to the Court of Appeal under Section 17 of the. Criminal Appeal Act 1968 on 6th November 1985. As your Lordships are aware, it was heard before the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice on 5th December 1985, when Miss Fitzpatrick and the presenters of the "Rough Justice" series gave evidence. Mr. Mycock's conviction was subsequently quashed. During the course of delivering judgment the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice expressed strong criticism of the methods deployed by the "Rough Justice" team.

At this point I must emphasise two matters. First, throughout his consideration of Mr. Mycock's case my right honourable friend the Home Secretary was concerned only with the safety of Mr. Mycock's conviction. It was not for my right honourable friend to pass judgment on the way in which the "Rough Justice" team had carried out its inquiries; nor did that in any way influence his decision as to whether the case should be referred to the Court of Appeal. Secondly—and this brings me back to my earlier theme of the independence of the judiciary—my right honourable friend has no responsibility for the comments which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, made on these matters. The noble and learned Lord was expressing the views of the court. It is not for me to comment in any way about them.

The noble Lord, Lord Paget, referred to a letter that had been sent. I have not sufficient detailed information on this case in front of me to make any remarks on what initiated the original police inquiries into the case and caused them to question Mr. Mycock. I tear I cannot comment on speculation about what the police may or may not have done. Your Lordships will note, as I have said, that the case was referred, and the Court of Appeal made its decision.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Silkin, raised the matter of another case which he chose not to name, but I am aware of the one to which he referred. All I can say is that, as he said, following further representations and with particular regard to a memorandum from counsel on this particular case at the trial, the case was referred to the Court of Appeal under Section 17. It was heard in February 1986, when the court dismissed the appeal. I do not think it will profit us any more to go down the road of individual cases such as that.

I should like to turn now to the issues, which were highlighted by the Mycroft case, about the role of the media in investigating alleged miscarriages of justice. No-one inside or outside government, except those with mischievous intent, has an interest in creating a judicial system which is unfair or inhumane, or in which miscarriages of justice are swept under the carpet. It is an old maxim that justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. In the modern world the press and the broadcasting media are the eyes and ears of the public. They have a legitimate and, indeed, a crucial role to play in the field of criminal justice, as they have in very many areas of public life. They not only publicise the fact that justice has been done, but the publicity which they give to a particular crime can be vital in bringing forward witnesses and in exciting public attention in ways that may lead to the apprehension of suspects. Recent events have borne this out. The media have also been effective through their investigative reporting in exposing criminal activities which have led to subsequent prosecutions and sentencing. Consumer protection programmes on radio and television have had some notable successes here.

Finally, as the noble Lord's Question acknowledges, the media have been instrumental in drawing attention to miscarriages of justice. Often this has been achieved by diligent research on the part of journalists who have unearthed new evidence or new witnesses to show that the earlier decisions of the courts and juries were unsafe and should be overturned. The Home Secretary has acted on such evidence in a number of cases. In the end, it is to him that any new evidence or material must go. It does not have to be presented on television first. He does not need to watch television to be persuaded that a particular case merits review. I am sure that your Lordships agree that even where an alleged miscarriage of justice is concerned we do not want to see trial by television.

There are considerable achievements, and those I have described rightly should be applauded. But they carry with them considerable responsibilities, and it is here that I should like to introduce a slightly critical note. Of course I do not believe that the media are for the most part malicious, but I do believe that in pursuit of stories and audience there is sometimes a tendency to prefer sensationalism to a sober analysis of the facts. I do not suppose that many of your Lordships would disagree with me on that point. We are all too familiar, I fear, with the activities of those newspapers which, on occasions, hound and humiliate the victims of crime, however much they may also assist in the apprehension of criminals. There have also been instances where the media have damaged the reputations of innocent people in an over-zealous attempt to expose a wrongdoing which does not exist.

Even in the very laudable activity of investigating and drawing attention to possible miscarriages of justice there is a real danger, as we have heard, that a journalist or reporter may bring very improper pressure to bear on a witness. Some may argue that this kind of means is justified by the very important ends which those concerned are trying to achieve, but I would suggest that this is a dangerous path to follow.

I want to say only two further things about the Mycock case. First, the television programme concerned has been in existence for a number of years and I understand from newspaper reports that it will be on the air again in due course in some form. I do not know whether there is a list of cases which that programme is or was intending to present. I simply say to the noble Lord, Lord Paget, that if anyone, be it the Justice organisation or anyone else, has any evidence or information about what may be a miscarriage of justice, he should bring it to the attention of the Home Secretary. It does not have to await a broadcast. The Government never have, and so far as I am concerned—

Lord Paget of Northampton

My Lords, if the noble Lord will permit me, perhaps I may say how delighted I am to hear from him that the "Rough Justice" programme is not over and that we are going to see it again, because it has a very useful job to do.

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, I said to the noble Lord that I understood from press reports that it was to appear in the future. The noble Lord may have seen them as well. I was going on to say that the Government never have questioned, and, so far as I am concerned, never will question, the right of this programme or of any other journalist to dig as deeply as he can to uncover miscarriages in our criminal justice system. The Government share a view expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, in the course of delivering judgment in Mr. Mycock's case—and, indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has said much the same thing—that no one could complain about any attempt to right injustice, and the sooner errors (which are bound to occur from time to time) in the judicial system are remedied, the better.

Secondly—and I return once again to the issue of independence—the two journalists who were involve din this programme were severely reprimanded by their employer, the BBC, on the strictly professional grounds of bringing BBC journalism into disrepute. I should like to make it quite clear, in case there is any doubt, that this decision was taken by the BBC and the BBC alone. At no time were the Government in contact with the BBC about this case and still less did they express a view on the issues at the centre of the controversy, or on the allegations made against the journalists. This was a matter entirely between the BBC and the journalists in the light of the comments made during the proceedings in the Court of Appeal.

Broadcasters in this country, and the courts, carry heavy responsibilities. In this instance both institutions have shown themselves to be vigorous in insisting upon the high professional standards which are the corollary of independence. I can assure your Lordships that there is no question of this Government casting doubt upon the valued independence or the liberty of the media, nor upon their role in investigating miscarriages of justice now or in the future.