§ Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will investigate practices by police forces passing information to prosecuting counsel in respect of prospective jurors with previous criminal records; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WhitelawThe practice is that, where the police have reason to believe that a potential juror may be disqualified, they may check records of previous convictions and inform the court authorities accordingly. Apart from this, it is established that the police should not check162W their records for information about potential jurors or pass such information to prosecuting counsel save in certain exceptional cases, broadly speaking ones involving serious offences with political overtones and serious gang offences, and then only on the personal authority of the Director of Public Prosecutions or his deputy.
The guidelines involved were set out in a statement last year by the then Attorney-General. In view of reports that records of convictions of potential jurors may have been passed to prosecuting counsel in cases not covered by these guidelines, my officials have discussed the issues with representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers.