May Report (Hansard, 30 June 1994)

§ Mr. Howard

As I announced on 16 May, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and I have received Sir John May's report of his inquiry into the case of the Guildford Four who were convicted in 1975 of murder and conspiracy to cause explosions following the Guildford public house bombings in October 1974. Paul Hill and Patrick Armstrong were additionally convicted of murder and conspiracy to cause explosions in connection650W with the Woolwich public house bombing in November 1974. Their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal on 19 October 1989 following the decision of the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) to refer their case to the Court of Appeal under the provisions of section 17(1)(a) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968.

This report is being published today in response to an Order of the House for a Return. We wish to thank Sir John, and all those who assisted him throughout his inquiry, for the care and thoroughness with which he and they have examined the circumstances surrounding the convictions of the four and the subsequent consideration given to representations made on their behalf to my Department that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

In his report, Sir John examines how the Guildford and Woolwich public house bombings were investigated by Surrey constabulary and the Metropolitan police respectively, the circumstances which led to the Four's arrest, and to the arrest of others in connection with the offences, and reviews the basis of the decision to prosecute the four. He then details the admissions made by the four in various statements to the police and sets out their respective explanations for why these were made. The alibis of the four for the Guildford bombing are examined in detail, as are the alibis of Paul Hill and Patrick Armstrong for the Woolwich bombing. Sir John has also considered the conduct of the trial, the interviews given by three of the four to the police following their convictions, the disclosure of forensic correlation evidence at the trial, the arrest of the Balcombe street gang in December 1975 and the admissions made by some of them and by one of their associates with regard to the Guildford and Woolwich bombings. Sir John has also examined the events which preceded the four's appeal against conviction in 1977, the conduct of that appeal, the role of Home Office Ministers and officials in considering representations alleging that a miscarriage of justice had occurred in their case and finally the 1989 appeal which resulted in their convictions being quashed.

This was a very serious miscarriage of justice. The Government are determined that lessons are learned from such cases and applied effectively in the future. This is why we set up Sir John's inquiry and, more recently, the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice.

Sir John's report contains a number of serious criticisms about the handling by the police of the original investigation, for example the number of arrests made, the inadequate basis for many of those arrests and the treatment accorded to those held in custody. However, it also acknowledges the many changes which have already taken place with regard to police powers and practice following the enactment of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the resulting improvements achieved through the regulation of such matters as the interrogation of suspects, the time for which they can be detained in custody before being brought before the courts and their treatment while in custody under the codes of practice issued under the 1984 Act.

The report refers to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, in connection with the number of people arrested during the early stages of the police investigations of the Guildford and Woolwich bombings and concludes that, in relation to many of them, the police exceeded the powers available to them under the Act. Sir John draws attention to the 651W safeguards provided by PACE and expresses concern that there are greater risks of injustice in terrorist cases where some of the PACE safeguards do not apply.

I have noted those points very carefully but think it important to stress that whatever early difficulties were encountered in using the Act's provisions, those do not reflect upon the way in which the Act is used now. The police are now very much better informed about the way in which their powers should be exercised. Detailed guidance has been issued and is supplemented by regular briefings. All persons detained under the PTA in England and Wales are covered either by the statutory safeguards in PACE or by the specific safeguards which have been built into PTA itself. In particular, PACE code of practice C, covering the detention, treatment and questioning of persons by police officers applies to all persons in police detention including those arrested under the PTA.

The allegations of misconduct and ill treatment by police officers reported by Sir John have been the subject of appropriate action, including disciplinary action, wherever sufficient evidence has been available. Since the 1970s, considerable improvements have been made to the way in which complaints against the police are conducted. If similar allegations were to be made now, the police investigation would be likely to be undertaken by another police force under the supervision of a member of the Police Complaints Authority. The Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill, currently before Parliament, will provide scope for police disciplinary action to be quicker and less legalistic.

Sir John's report notes the prosecution's failure to disclose before the trial expert witness statements and an alibi statement that might have been helpful to the defence; but he attributes those failures to regrettable human error rather than to any deliberate attempt to pervert the course of justice or to any failure of the criminal justice system itself. He also recognises that in certain other respects the prosecution team made fuller disclosure than its legal obligations required. It is worth noting that since the Guildford four's convictions, the law and practice on disclosure has developed in such a way that it should be much less likely that such a situation could occur.

In reviewing the Home Office's role in this case, Sir John concludes that the criteria which successive Home Secretaries have used to determine whether a case should be referred to the Court of Appeal are sound in law and logic and provide no grounds for criticism. I welcome his further conclusion that, within the limits imposed by those criteria, the Home Office investigated the representations it received with care and efficiency. We seek constantly to apply the lessons to be learned from cases of this kind and we shall go on doing so. In the years since the Guildford case was referred my Department has developed a broader approach to cases that come to it for review, in particular by being ready where appropriate to investigate cases more widely than the specific points raised in representations, and by being ready to start up inquiries where a case comes to attention without necessarily waiting for representations to be made.

The Government have accepted the Royal Commission's recommendation that a new independent body should be established to take over my responsibilities for reviewing such cases in the future, and I am currently considering the responses we have received to the discussion paper which we issued last March.

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Clearly, much has already been done to correct past mistakes and failings, but the Government are anxious that the criminal justice system in England and Wales should be as effective and efficient as possible in investigating crimes and prosecuting and convicting the guilty—and only the guilty.

The Royal Commission made 352 recommendations for changes to be made to improve the criminal justice system in this country. Almost half of those have now been accepted by the Government, and some are included in the current Criminal Justice Bill before the House of Lords.

The Government attach very great importance to the proper administration of justice and will take whatever action may be necessary in the future to safeguard against miscarriages of justice.