WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2002

COMMISSIONER JAMES HART AND MR MIKE LOBB

  229. Thank you very much, both of you, for coming to help us with our inquiry into the control of firearms in Northern Ireland and the draft Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2002 on which we are reporting before the government brings it to the House of Commons. You have raised serious concerns about the proposal to extend the life of a firearms certificate in Northern Ireland from three to five years based on the experience of police forces in Great Britain. If the government does go ahead with the proposal to extend certificate life in Northern Ireland, are there any lessons which you believe might be learned from your experience for implementing that change?
  (Commissioner Hart) Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to come along and elaborate on a few of these points. I should say at the outset that I represent ACPO England and Wales and although it is normal in such circumstances to represent Northern Ireland also, it is of course apparent to the Committee that legislation is very different between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland in this particular subject area. I am aware that my colleague, Hugh Orde, will be speaking to you later on. I just need to make that distinction quite clear. Yes, we do have some concerns in England and Wales about the five-year certificate and it is not so much the principle of the five-year certificate, it is the practical difficulties which fall from it. I have to say that the practical difficulties are unique to England and Wales and may not necessarily apply to Northern Ireland. The principal difficulty we have here is in the administration of firearms licensing departments. My colleague Michael Lobb can go into some detail if you wish. Essentially, on the expiry of a three-year certificate, there is a two-year period which is effectively a lull when firearms licensing departments will not have the volume of renewals that they will have in years one to three. Essentially this means that unless the department is very efficiently managed, staff are not fully occupied on renewal business for years four and five. You will be aware, Chairman, I know, of the pressures on chief constables to make the best use of resources and it is very tempting in years four and five to redeploy those staff to other duties. The consequences of that are that the recommendations of the Home Affairs Committee which sat previously that firearms inquiries should be undertaken by fully trained and properly qualified people falls away. It is then necessary to retrain people to start over years one, two and three again. That is a practical issue for firearms licensing departments in England and Wales. It may be your judgement that you would want to ask my colleague the Chief Constable of the Police Service Northern Ireland, how that particular issue affects him. I think he will probably say to you that his firearms enquiry officers are in fact police officers, whereas our firearms enquiry officers are members of civilian support staff. I think he would probably say to you that he could do something better with those officers in years four and five.

  230. That is well understood. We shall of course ask Mr Orde that question when he gets here in an hour or so. With hindsight, would there have been a way round it if the government had made the Great Britain legislation more flexible and allowed you to get over that hump? Is that a lessons we could learn and possibly incorporate in this if it were appropriate for Northern Ireland?
  (Commissioner Hart) Yes, it is. In fact in light of the difficulties which have been brought to my attention by firearms licensing departments, we have approached the Home Office to see whether or not we could vary the duration of a firearms certificate between three and five years in those suitable cases in order to be able to spread the renewal administrative workload. I should perhaps add that in certain cases it would be desirable to reduce the period of certification because although not numerically great there are some people who disappear from the licensing system with greater frequency in years four and five than perhaps we had experienced with the three-year system. They just drop off the end. Best enquiries to try to trace them fail and we know there are, albeit a very small number, people out there with uncertificated firearms who have previously been part of a certificated regime.

  231. Subject to whatever Mr Orde might say, you would like to see more flexibility in the Firearms Order to give you the opportunity first of all to make it more efficient for you and secondly not to let those people slip through the net. I am paraphrasing what you were saying.
  (Commissioner Hart) Exactly so.

  232. You also referred to the possibility of suspending a holder's certificate for a period during the investigation of any complaint. In what circumstances would this be a useful power?
  (Commissioner Hart) There are occasions when complaints are made to police regarding the use and conduct of individuals possessing firearms and that may well be something as straightforward as a temporary incapacity, taking of prescription drugs, a difficult period over lifestyle or what have you. While such an allegation is investigated, it is sometimes the judgement of police that it would be appropriate to be able to withdraw that certificate, in other words to be able to seize the weapon and the certificate while investigations are made into the allegation. Nobody would be suggesting that the firearm or certificate would not be returned if in fact the allegation proved to be groundless, but there are circumstances in which we feel that the temporary suspension for a fixed period of time could be advantageous. I have to say that such a system would not be without its practical difficulties and the administration of such a process would need to be thought through fairly carefully.

  233. Are you saying that if an individual with a legally held firearm or shotgun was found in a state of intoxication or under the influence of drugs, you could not take it away from them?
  (Commissioner Hart) Of course it could be; if the threat were an immediate danger the police have adequate powers to deal with that.

  234. I did not mean that he was threatening anybody with it, but was "drunk in charge of it" to use an old phrase.
  (Commissioner Hart) Yes, or perhaps more frequently taking prescription drugs or something similar which might be quite a lawful activity in itself but may perhaps impede the ability of an individual to possess one.

  235. Do you not have the power to take the weapon unless someone's life is in danger?
  (Commissioner Hart) Not to suspend the certificate. If somebody's life is in danger the gun can be seized, of course, yes.

  236. It is more important, if there is a temporary problem or an emotional crisis or whatever, to take the gun away than the certificate, is it not?
  (Commissioner Hart) Yes; absolutely.

  237. If you take a piece of paper away, you are not going to solve the problem. Do you have the power to take away the gun.
  (Commissioner Hart) Yes, we can certainly take the weapon away; it is the certificate which cannot be suspended.

  238. Is that really important?
  (Commissioner Hart) Yes, it is.

  239. If you take away my shotgun my certificate is not much good to me, is it?
  (Mr Lobb) Yes, it is, because you can go and get another firearm with it. It is the allegation which is important. When one receives a telephone call, possibly anonymous, "I know a man. He shouldn't have a gun", we need to investigate that and we have no idea whether the allegation is spurious or not.

  Chairman: Yes, I understand; thank you.