The ninth day of line-by-line consideration of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment bill at Committee stage in the House of Lords last week, which was midwife to the birth of Jane’s Law, might also lead to Clare’s Law.

Baroness Gale moved an amendment to the bill which would insert a new clause providing for ‘disclosure of information about convictions etc. of violent abusers to members of the public’. As with Jane’s Law, the amendment results from shocking events. Baroness Gale said that in 2007 Clare Wood began a relationship with George Appleton, a man she had met through Facebook. She ended the relationship after a year, but then became the target of a sustained campaign of violence and harassment. Over the next six months Appleton stalked Clare, sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her. In February 2009 he strangled her, killing her before setting her body on fire. After a six-day manhunt he fled to an abandoned pub and hanged himself.

Baroness Gale went on to say: “Appleton had a long background of violence against women, including repeated allegations and convictions of harassment, threats to kill, and kidnapping one of his ex-girlfriends at knifepoint. Clare had no way of knowing this. Had she had that information, it could have saved her life.” She said that, at the inquest into Clare’s death, the coroner recommended that “consideration should be given to the disclosure of such convictions and their circumstances to potential victims in order that they can make informed choices about matters affecting their safety and that of their children”.”

Baroness Gale outlined some horrific statistics. In 2009-10 in England and Wales, 21 men and 94 women were killed by a partner or ex-partner. Over the past 10 years, an average of between 111 and 146 people a year have been murdered by their partner or ex-partner. ACPO estimates that there are 25,000 serial perpetrators of domestic violence in the country.

In response, minister of state Lord McNally expressed great sympathy with the proposal, and said that the government are committed to ending violence against women and girls. He went on to say: “However, disclosing information raises serious and complex questions about the appropriate circumstances in which information could be disclosed, particularly for the continued safety of a potential victim.” The Home Secretary has launched a consultation so that everyone with an interest or concern could express their views. He added: “The Government want to consider the wide range of views on this important and sensitive issue before taking matters further. However, I hope that she will accept my reassurance that we intend to take the matter further.”

Baroness Gale responded by withdrawing the amendment, saying: “I am sure that we will eventually get to Clare’s law.”

The Lords continued their examination of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill on Monday, starting with Clause 8, which makes provisions about when civil legal services would be made available.

Amendment 21 was moved by Lord Beecham. He said that the bill sought to make legal aid provision a matter of exception rather than of course. Instead of listing only matters that would be eligible for legal aid, they exclude everything except those matters that are contained within the clause. The amendment would reverse the way that the Government are putting matters. It was withdrawn without being put to the vote.

Amendment 22, moved by Lord Faulks, concerned Clause 8(2), which gives the Lord Chancellor the power to modify Part 1 of Schedule 1 so as to omit services from the scope of legal aid and assistance. He said that the power would allow the Lord Chancellor to remove areas from the scope of legal aid without proper debate on the Floor of the House. After debate, he said: “I very much hope that, when this matter comes back on Report, those concerns can be reflected by the Minister. In that guise, I am happy to withdraw this amendment.” Amendments 23 to 27 were not moved.

Consideration moved on to Schedule 1: Civil legal services. Amendment 28 was moved by Lord Lloyd of Berwick, one of a group of amendments concerning clinical negligence proceedings and expert reports. All the amendments were directed towards the retention of legal aid in clinical negligence cases. Lord Wigley said: “Many people involved in cases arising from clinical negligence by a public authority are among the most destitute…Considering the inequality of arms that inevitably arises, having access to expert reports is vital. To put this debate into context, there are about 1 million adverse accidents in the NHS every year.” The debate – described as “very thoughtful” because so many of those who participated had experience, either legal or medical, of cases of this kind – looked at the best way to fund the expert report and resulted in the amendment’s withdrawal pending further figures from the government. Amendments 29 to 31 were not moved.

Baroness Doocey proposed amendment 32, relating to the ability of claimants, the majority of whom are disabled, to appeal against decisions on their entitlement to welfare benefits. She said that the Bill as it stands would remove social welfare cases from the scope of legal aid. “The need for such legal aid is best demonstrated by the fact that nearly 40 per cent of all appeals against work capability assessment decisions are upheld.” After a lively debate and a robust response from minister Lord McNally, Baroness Doocey said: “I really hope that the Minister will reflect again and consider bringing back some hope at Report stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.”

Baroness O’Loan proposed amendment 33, which sought to restore families with dependent children to the list of those eligible for legal aid and advice. She said: “Some 650,000 of the poorest people will be deprived of the access that they currently have through solicitors, CAB law centres and other advice centres…140,000 children will be affected by the proposed measures as legal aid is withdrawn from the adults who care for them, and…at least 6,000 children will be deprived of legal aid altogether.” In response to the debate, Lord McNally said: “I am not waving a white handkerchief and making specific concessions, but I take the point made by the noble and learned Baroness in closing that this has been an array of experience and expertise that we would do well to consider, and this we will do before we bring these matters back on Report. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, who started this debate, whether she will now withdraw her amendment.” She did.

More to come, with day four scheduled for Wednesday, 18 January.

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Michael Foot once memorably described him as a ‘semi-house trained polecat’ in recognition of his fierce right wing views. So when the same Norman Tebbit, now ennobled, proposes what can only be described as liberal minded amendments to the current Legal Aid bill it is a moment of significance.

He has put his name down to two, linked amendments that would ensure children, or parents on their behalf, will be entitled to legal aid if they need to pursue medical negligence claims. In relation to depriving claimants under the age of 18 from having access to legal aid for medical negligence claims, he told the ‘Guardian’: “In that area [the bill] may be going too far. I want to hear all the arguments. It’s right that it should be debated.” He had taken up the cause, he said, because: “I have listened and read the arguments …and I think there’s sufficient in it that we ought to [examine]. It’s nice to be on the side of the angels for once.”

At the same time the embattled Ken Clarke contributed an article in the ‘Guardian’ in which, almost apocalyptically, he said: “There should be no doubt that the system is facing an existential crisis.” He went on to say: “So for any reasonable individual it is not a question of whether we reform legal aid, but how. My approach has been to take a methodical, first-principles look at the system. The logic is simple: to determine carefully which types of cases most urgently merit scarce resources, to encourage people to use non-adversarial solutions to their problems where appropriate, and to speed up and simplify court processes where not.” He concluded: “The threat I want my reforms to pose is to a failing system, outdated methods and unreformed working practices, not to the needy.”

He will not have been pleased to hear the right wing former MP for Chingford, a supporter of the government’s draconian spending cuts, say that he feared that some of the economies proposed by the Ministry of Justice may be “going too far.”
The bill came to the House of Lords at committee stage on Tuesday. The debate got no further than amendments to clause 1, which defines the Lord Chancellor’s responsibilities. Four amendments were debated but all four were withdrawn without being put to the vote. Once again, reading the debate, it was noticeable that, apart from the ministerial team, the government had not put up anyone to speak in favour of the legal aid proposals. Committee stage continues on 10 January when further amendments will be discussed.

And finally, may I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Image courtesy of The Freedom Association’s photostream on Flickr

Barristers are renewing their efforts to capture the territory that has traditionally been the preserve of solicitors. To this end two initiatives have been launched.

The public access scheme was first established in 2004 and allows a barrister to be instructed directly by a lay client without the need for a solicitor. In order to take on public access work a barrister must have more than three years’ practising experience, must be properly trained and must have registered with the Bar Council as a public access practitioner. One stumbling block has been payment of barristers by clients.

In his inaugural speech to the Bar Council on Monday, Michael Todd QC, Chairman-Elect, confirmed that he is “chairing a Working Group, essentially led again by the Member Services Team, to look at the feasibility of a service which would provide BSB-regulated entities and Public Access barristers with an escrow account facility in which can be placed ‘client monies’ and which will be administered centrally from one location by a third party.” He said: “Already considerable interest has been displayed by a number of potential providers of this service.”

He told the Bar Council: “We have no entitlement to work. We must compete for it. We must invest better to adapt, to change, and to flourish. The returns on such investment are, in my view, undeniable.” He went on to say: “Of a Bar of about 15,000 members, nearly 5,000 are now ‘Public Access’ trained. They have made an investment in their future.” In his CrimeLine twitter

Andrew Keogh confirms that: “My police rep courses are mainly filled with barristers at the moment.”

Then on Wednesday last week the Bar Standards Board (BSB), the regulatory body for barristers in England and Wales, announced that it is consulting on amendments to its Code of Conduct for barristers following a review of its public access rules. The BSB said: “Public access rules do not allow a client who may be eligible for public funding to instruct a public access barrister. This is one of the rules the BSB seeks to change. The consultation also suggests that barristers should have a duty to ensure that, before accepting public access instructions, the client is able to make an informed decision about whether to apply for legal aid or to proceed with public access representation.” The lifting of the ban on barristers with under three years’ practising experience from accepting public access instructions is also proposed.

The BSB claim that the change would improve client choice and provide greater access to justice for clients who find themselves without access to legal aid solicitors. Removing the three-year rule and allowing barristers to do direct access work from the time they qualify would expand consumer choice, create greater competition and increase the supply of high quality and competitively priced advocacy services.

According to the Law Gazette, the consultation paper states: “The purpose of allowing lay clients to instruct barristers directly is to remove unnecessary barriers to the provision of barristers’ services and to save costs by cutting out superfluous intermediaries.”

The consultation will close at 5pm on 9 March 2012, and the consultation paper can be found at:
http://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/assets/documents/Public%20access%20consultation%20paper%20new.pdf
PS: “Escrow generally refers to the placing of property which is the subject of a commercial transaction (money, title deeds, software source code, etc.,) into the hands of a trusted third party for safekeeping until some specified event occurs which will trigger the release of the property to one party to the initial transaction.” (Out-Law.com)

On Monday the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill came before the Lords for its second reading. In eight hours there were over fifty contributors to a high quality debate.

Part 2 (litigation funding and costs) and part 3 (sentencing and punishment of offenders) did not feature greatly in the exchanges, and were largely approved. Overwhelmingly the debate concerned part 1 of the bill – legal aid. And overwhelmingly the contributors opposed the government’s proposals.

Baroness Scotland said: “Justice should be available in times of good and ill. In times of ill, it is more necessary than ever.” She quoted the late Lord Bingham when he argued “that one of the ingredients of the rule of law itself was that ‘means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive cost or inordinate delay, bona fide disputes which the parties are unable themselves to resolve.” Lord Bingham went on to say that “denial of legal protection to the poor litigant who cannot afford to pay is one enemy of the rule of law.” Lord Pannick looked back to the speech of Sir Hartley Shawcross, the Attorney-General, when he introduced the Legal Aid and Advice Bill in December 1948. He said: “His concern and the concern of the Labour Government in those days was that the doors of the courts were in theory open to ordinary people, ‘just as the grill room at the Ritz Hotel is open to all’, but obtaining and acting on legal advice were ‘luxuries which were beyond their reach’.”

Viscount Simon was concerned that taking clinical negligence out of the scope of legal aid will prevent vast numbers of people ever having their case properly investigated. “Because the vast majority of clinical negligence victims are harmed at the hands of a state body – the NHS – there is a strong moral argument that the state should ensure that these people have access to justice,” he said. Baroness Gould said: “The Bill is discriminatory and will entrench inequality for women, people from minority ethnic groups, disabled people and other groups facing discrimination, all of whom will be disproportionately affected.” Drawing on some 25 years’ experience of legal aid litigation, Lord Clinton-Davis said: “The real trouble with this Bill is that there will be no savings: indeed, the very reverse. Unrepresented persons will appear before courts and tribunals and many, through no fault of their own, will make false and incoherent points. Time will be wasted.”

Baroness Kennedy expressed concern that “having ready access to a lawyer will be replaced by a telephone hotline, a sort of call centre. We all know the problems that we have with call centres in every other area of our lives; imagine it when you are in distress and in need of decent legal advice.” Lord Elystan-Morgan asserted that “unless a Government of the future pass a one-clause Bill to abolish legal aid completely, the contents of this Bill and the proposals surrounding them must constitute the most savage and most deadly attack upon the institution of legal aid in the 62 years of its existence.”

As chief prosecutor, Lord Macdonald had seen the extent of the scourge of domestic violence, its impact on those who suffered it, who were mainly women, and its impact on the children, who usually witnessed it. He said: “An inevitable consequence of the Bill’s approach to domestic violence is that more people – again, mainly women and children – will be trapped in more abusive relationships with no succour at all from our law. I venture to suggest to noble Lords that that is a situation that would bring shame upon our entire legal system.” On means testing at the police station he said: “Are we really to say that no interview is going to take place before a means test is considered, no charge may be preferred until the financial forms are filled out and passed – mortgage payments, rents, wage slips, debts, assets and all the rest of it? It is – I choose my words carefully – a foolish notion. Who is going to calculate the cost of this in wasted time and disruption to the forensic process?”

Replying to the debate, minister of state Lord McNally said: “It is not true that we brushed aside the Law Society’s wonderful ideas for saving the money in different ways. We considered its proposals very carefully…A great deal of its proposals were shuffling responsibilities and costs around Whitehall or producing new taxes, which is not the same as making savings.”

The Bill was read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House, on a date to be arranged. That’s when the serious business of attempting amendments to the bill will take place.

One in five women and one in ten men suffer from the obsessive attention of a stalker at some point in their life. British Crime Survey figures show that up to five million people experience stalking or harassment every year, but only around 8,000 people are convicted of harassment-related offences each year.

According to the national charity Protection Against Stalking, “Stalking and harassment is life changing. It causes intimidation, loss of jobs and relationships, the victim to move home, fear and sometimes death to the victim. The behavioural characteristics of the stalker are easily recognised but yet practitioners in the Criminal Justice System time and time again have failed to identify, assess and manage the risk due to a lack of understanding and inadequate training.” Laura Richards, a psychologist with Protection Against Stalking, said: “Victims are rarely taken seriously and most of the time they are told that the police cannot do anything and ‘their hands are tied by the law’. Too often we hear that perpetrators have rights, while victims only have codes and charters.”

The ‘Call to End Violence Against Women and Girls – Action Plan’ was published earlier this year. Key actions from the plan include making data on regional levels of violence against women – including domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking – more accessible to ensure resources are targeted to where they are most needed. A new national stalking group was promised to support the work of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Crown Prosecution Service in improving the police response to stalking.

Now it looks as if stalking could become a new criminal offence following an online consultation announced on Monday. Views are sought on how best to tackle this crime and provide protection for victims, on whether specific offences of ‘stalking’ and ‘cyber stalking’ should be added to existing harassment laws, and what training and guidance is needed for police and prosecutors. Home Secretary Theresa May said: “I am determined to ensure that victims of stalking have the protection and support they need. We are particularly interested in hearing from those with direct experience – victims, police and the courts.”

Speaking in Manchester, at the first of four regional events taking place on stalking, the minister for equalities and criminal information, Lynne Featherstone, said: “Stalking is an issue which profoundly affects many lives, often in devastating ways…There are campaigners and police I have talked to who believe the actual words of ‘stalking’ and ‘cyber stalking’ need to be in the act.” She promised that the Government would give more help to victims of stalking following the consultation. “It is quite clear that they are being let down but this government’s ambition is nothing less than ending violence against women and girls,” she said.

Closing date for contributions to the consultation is 5 February 2012. Provision for online submissions can be found at:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/about-us/consultations/stalking-consultation/

Last Tuesday Ken Clarke reignited the debate on the causes of the urban riots. Writing in the ‘Guardian’ he said that the riots were an outburst of outrageous behaviour by the criminal classes.

In an echo of John Reid’s classification of the home office as “unfit for purpose” he blamed the riots on a “broken penal system” that has failed to rehabilitate a group of hardcore offenders he describes as the “criminal classes”. He said: “It’s not yet been widely recognised, but the hardcore of the rioters were in fact known criminals. Close to three quarters of those aged 18 or over charged with riot offences already had a prior conviction. That is the legacy of a broken penal system – one whose record in preventing reoffending has been straightforwardly dreadful.” He concluded by saying: “The coalition has a renewed mission: tackling the financial deficit, for certain. But also, importantly, addressing the appalling social deficit that the riots have highlighted”.

This certainly ruffled the feathers of the home secretary. Speaking to the home affairs select committee about the riots later in the week she was moved to remark huffily that “It’s not helpful for politicians to suddenly speculate over what happened.” But then at the same meeting she gave the lie to David Cameron’s earlier certainty that gangs were to blame, so much so that he promised a “concerted, all out war on gangs and gang culture.” Theresa May revealed the inconvenient fact that in London only 19% of those arrested were gang members. Clearly the government has a vacancy for a hymn-sheet coordinator.

Then on the same Tuesday came the momentous announcement that the ban on filming in law courts will be overturned to improve public understanding of the justice system. The justice secretary said: “The Government and judiciary are determined to improve transparency and public understanding of court through allowing court broadcasting. We believe television has a role in increasing public confidence in the justice system.” Filming will be of judges’ summary remarks only – victims, witnesses, offenders and jurors will not be filmed. So look out for a whole new category of TV stars. Broadcasting in court is currently prohibited by Section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 and Section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and the government intends to bring forward new primary legislation to provide for the necessary amendment. Initially a small step but with great scope for extension.

This announcement met with more approval than Clarke’s sortie into the riots minefield. Even Labour’s shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, gave it a welcome. He said: “Allowing the broadcast of judges’ sentencing remarks could make the sentencing process more transparent and understandable. It is important that our justice system is open and accessible. If done well and responsibly, this could be an important step in achieving that.” He did stress the importance of careful controls to protect jurors, victims and witnesses.
Not a bad day’s work for a septuagenarian cabinet minister.

Emergency powers to forcibly relocate terror suspects without consent are being planned by the Government in new emergency legislation, just months after it pledged to scrap the existing measure.

In January, home secretary Theresa May went to the House of Commons to announce the results of the counter terrorism review which was one of the main commitments of the coalition government. The headline announcement was the proposal to scrap the controversial control order regime. Control orders were to be replaced by “a new package of measures that is better focused and has more targeted restrictions,” to be known officially as terrorism prevention and investigation measures (TPIMs for short). There would be removal of those aspects of control orders that most resemble house arrest, with curfews replaced by an overnight residence requirement. In particular, forcible relocation was to be ended and replaced with the power to order more tightly defined exclusions from particular areas.

When the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill was published in May it was widely regarded as a rebranding of the control order regime. The only substantive concession was the removal of provision for internal exile. Now, in a major U-turn, the government has published the Enhanced Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Bill. In the draft bill the Government says that it intends to use powers of relocation or other restrictions “in exceptional circumstances”. The ability to move a suspect to a new home for security reasons, originally abandoned by thegovernment, could now be taken in matters relating to national security. Theresa May said: “We will publish, but not introduce, legislation allowing more stringent measures, including curfews and further restrictions on communications, association and movement.” The powers will be held in reserve and put before parliament should exceptional circumstances arise.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has branded the draft legislation as “irresponsible, incompetent and potentially dangerous.” “The Government has finally admitted there is a problem with their plans to weaken counter terror legislation and remove the ability to relocate very dangerous terror suspects”, she said. She went on to say: “Instead of amending her own bill to sort this out, the Home Secretary has created a shambolic process of draft emergency legislation that won’t work for those cases and is impractical and chaotic, especially when Parliament is not sitting. It does not give the police or security services what they need to keep communities safe, especially during Olympic year when the capital may need extra protection. The Home Secretary is putting political deals and fudges ahead of national security.”

Other critics include Lord Carlile, former independent advisor on terrorism strategy, who said the legislation is the “worst of all possible worlds”. Tory MP David Davies is reported as saying that the new draft emergency powers are as ill-thought out as control orders. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: “You can call them control orders, TPIMs, or whatever you like, but they still allow dangerous terrorists to live amongst us whilst innocent people are punished forever with no opportunity to stand trial and clear their name. Ten years into the ‘war on terror’, have we really learned so little?”

333 people died in or immediately after police custody in the years 1999 to 2009,  according to statistics from the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The MoJ report that last year 58 prisoners committed suicide. Now, for the first time, police forces, prisons, youth detention centres and the UK Border Agency could face prosecution for corporate homicide if an individual dies in their custody.

Section 2(1)(d) of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 prescribes a duty of care to a person who, by reason of being a person within subsection (2), is someone for whose safety the organisation is responsible. Subsection (2) states that a person is within this subsection if -

(a) he is detained at a custodial institution or in a custody area at a court or police station;

(b) he is detained at a removal centre or short-term holding facility;

(c) he is being transported in a vehicle, or being held in any premises, in pursuance of prison escort arrangements or immigration escort arrangements;

(d) he is living in secure accommodation in which he has been placed;

(e) he is a detained patient.

Implementation of this clause has been delayed to give police forces and prisons time to inspect their custody facilities and make sure they are up to the required standards. Now Commencement No.3 Order 2011 brings the provisions into force on 1st September.

Among campaigners welcoming the new provisions is Inquest, a charitable organisation that provides a specialist advice service to bereaved people, lawyers, other advice and support agencies, the media, MPs and the wider public on contentious deaths and their investigation. Their casework priorities are deaths in custody (police, prison, immigration detention and deaths of detained patients). The monitoring of such deaths means that they claim to be at the forefront of uncovering patterns and trends, and within this area there are particular concerns about the deaths of women, black people, young people, and people with mental health problems.

Inquest say that, until now, there has been no successful prosecutions for deaths in custody, even in the 10 cases since 1990 where an inquest jury had returned an unlawful killing verdict. Helen Shaw, their co-director, believes that the new provisions will provide a fresh avenue to address the problems of death in custody and should have a deterrent effect, preventing future deaths.

Writing in the ‘Guardian’, Sandra Laville says: “Prosecutions will take place if it can be proved that the way the facilities are managed or organised caused a death and amounted to a breach of the duty of care. The penalty for organisations convicted is a fine with no maximum limit. Crown Prosecution Service guidance says that the fines are likely to be in the many millions of pounds.”

Margaret Thatcher’s priorities for the police were always clear. They were cosseted. Numbers, pay, overtime, the sky seemed to be the limit. Cynics would say that it was insurance for her contentious domestic policies, whether taking on the miners or introducing the poll tax.

David Cameron has been very different. It is almost as if he is determined to be confrontational, with swingeing cuts in budgets and numbers and a pay freeze. There have been critical speeches about police performance, culminating in the unseemly and very public spat about the initial reaction to the recent urban riots. Not to mention the blame game of the phone tapping scandal.

So there was perhaps an element of fence mending in home secretary Theresa May’s hastily arranged speech to police leaders on Tuesday. She went out of her way to praise the police for the handling of the riots. “We owe all police officers a debt of gratitude,” she said. “They risk their own safety day in, day out to protect ours. And I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our police leaders, who made those changes that led to the restoration of order on our streets. They worked tirelessly in leading their officers through a difficult time, and they deserve much credit for that.” But there was no resiling from the proposed cuts. “ The police are going to have to take their share of the burden. People often say there will be twenty per cent police cuts.  And that’s true”, she said.

The home secretary then dealt with extra powers for the police to deal with any future disturbances. In a key section of her speech she said: “We have already said that we will give the police new powers, including new gang injunctions for young people and the right to remove face coverings, as well as considering new curfew powers.  For example, under existing laws, there is no power to impose a general curfew in a particular area, and while curfew conditions can be placed on some offenders as part of their ASBO, criminal sentence or bail conditions, there are only limited powers to impose them on somebody under the age of sixteen.  Those are the sorts of changes we need to consider. So we will make sure the police have the powers they need.”

Apart from practical implications – can you imagine local curfews in Olympics year? – this approach has met with some opposition. Mairi Clare Rodgers, Director of Media Relations at Liberty, said that more inclusion, fairness and equal treatment before the law, not less, is the only way to build personal and social responsibility. Politicians should listen when police chiefs tell them that new powers – on curfews, dispersals and face-coverings – are unnecessary. “We fail to see how leaning on magistrates to lock up youngsters and evicting entire families – innocent siblings and all – from their homes – is justified. Crude spite is flawed, both in theory and practice, and will lead to more problems than it solves. Shutting down entire phone and social media networks – punishing innocent users and those warning others of violence – is as useless as it is disproportionate”, she said.

Maria Fort, of Big Brother Watch, said that, while individual curfews are acceptable, blanket curfews are more controversial. “It springs images of war-time suppression and martial law on societies.  Even in crises of public order, there is no justification for denying the general public such basic liberties, particularly when the vast majority of the public are law-abiding individuals.”

The full text of the home secretary’s speech can be found at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/speeches/urgent-need-reform

Photo courtesy of nikolaasB’s photostream