|
Column Number: 1013
Standing Committee F
Thursday 13 February 2003
(Morning)
[Mr. George Stevenson in the Chair]
Clause 7
Hare coursing
8.55 am
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): I beg to move amendment No. 10, in
clause 7, page 2, leave out line 34.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment No. 70, in
clause 7, page 2, line 34, at end insert 'or'.
Amendment No. 11, in
clause 7, page 2, line 35, leave out from 'event' to end of line 37.
Amendment No. 316, in
Mr. Garnier: I shall speak to amendments Nos. 10, 70 and 11. If the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) is interested in amendment No. 316, I shall respond to what he says about that.
Amendment No. 70 is short and hardly controversial. This may be one of those magic days when the Government even agree to an amendment. I hesitate to say that there is incontrovertible evidence that they will, but who knows?
Amendment No. 10 would delete the new offence, created by clause 7(1)(b), of attending a hare coursing event, which is a novel extension to the criminal law. It is also a troubling extension, because the provision could turn a bystander into a criminal. If the Government wanted to outlaw hare-coursing events, that could be done without creating additional criminal offences by statute.
What is it about coursing that justifies the creation of three new crimes—attending, facilitating or allowing land to be used for a coursing event—in addition to the main crime of holding a coursing event? Common law already covers those whom the Government may intend to catch, through the law relating to aiding and abetting, counselling, procuring and so on. This seems to us to be a draconian and unjustified extension.
A bystander who is participating is caught by subsection (1)(a), but is already covered by common law. Participation in a crime can include keeping watch, giving tacit or actual encouragement or providing a means, such as a get-away car, the look-out or, in this case, the dogs, land and vehicles. Voluntary presence at the scene of a crime is a fact
Column Number: 1014
from which guilt can be, but is not necessarily, inferred. That is all trite law. I am not sure that subsection (1) adds anything to existing criminal law, other than to cause worries by a rather dangerous extension. Either clause 7 deals adequately with the offence of holding a coursing event under the usual principles and catches all those who take part, as principals or as aiders and abetters, or it does not. If it does not, we need to know why. I have my suspicions, but that is not the point. We cannot extend criminal law on the basis of my suspicions. I am a civil practitioner, not a criminal practitioner. A civil practitioner who has suspicions about the criminal law may be uneducated and ill informed, but that is not a way to start a legislative programme extending the criminal law.
Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West): Can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell the Committee whether, under subsection (1)(b), it would be a stand-alone criminal offence to attend a cock fight or prize fight?
Mr. Garnier: No, I cannot. If the hon. Gentleman knows the answer, perhaps he will tell me. I am not sure that there have been many cases involving cock fighting in this jurisdiction in the recent past, certainly not since I came to the Bar in 1974 or 1976.
Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): I cannot give my hon. and learned Friend the answer, but, as I understand it, in normal circumstances cock fighting is illegal. We are talking here about an activity that, although it appears rare, is not illegal. However, the proposal could apply in circumstances in which someone thought it to be legal. One could never think that cock fighting was legal.
Mr. Garnier: I entirely agree. In some senses, the discussion with my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) contains a touch of humour. We always enjoy that in the Committee, do we not, Mr. Stevenson? However, a serious point underlies it. Unless the Government screw down in precise terms any extension of the criminal law, we shall see the problem to which my right hon. Friend alluded.
Other aspects of the offence defined in clause 7 relate to positive actions taken by persons to participate in, facilitate or permit a hare coursing event, but attendance involves no positive action. It is simply passive observation, and should be dealt with under existing common law. It is unnecessary from the legal or animal welfare perspective to create a further criminal offence.
One is led to suspect—I return to my uninformed and ill-educated suspicions—that some moral or social engineering is involved here. Coursing events are to be deprecated as such and made criminal, so we must, the thinking goes, criminalise those who are involved in them, organise them, facilitate them and let them happen on the land. We must also criminalise those who attend. For criminal intent to be demonstrated, must those who are to be criminalised be shown to have bought a ticket or will they simply have to be voluntary attenders?
Column Number: 1015
Hare coursing is different from a football or professional cricket match, where one decides to go to a particular place to watch a particular game or event and gains entry to an enclosed area, in which there may or may not be seats. Coursing events may take place, as far as the hounds are concerned, among fields, hedges or banks, but they cannot be equated with public sporting events such as football or cricket matches.
As far as I know—I shall be corrected on this by the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall)—one does not have to pay to watch a coursing event. For all I know, people may go round with tins asking for voluntary contributions to the lifeboats, or whatever the relevant charity may be for the area, but I am reasonably sure that one does not have to produce a ticket to attend an event.
Mr. Hugo Swire (East Devon): What is my hon. and learned Friend's understanding of how the legislation would affect an innocent rambler who, walking through the countryside, stumbled across an illegal hare coursing event and, out of curiosity, stood and watched? If the police arrived, could he be charged with participating in or attending the event?
Mr. Garnier: The only advice that I can give to my hon. Friend is that, if the Bill is enacted, such a person should take a pillow case or a mask with him if he is thinking about rambling near a hare coursing event, so that he may rapidly insert his head in the pillow case or place the mask over his eyes. In that way, he would not fall into the trap of watching what is happening, as he could be accused of participating and attending as soon as he started watching. He should keep on rambling and not allow himself to dally for a moment, because the thought or coursing police or the registrar general of catching ramblers without pillow cases on their heads would be on to him like a shot.
People will bring private prosecutions. I very much doubt that Lancashire police will go out with lorry loads of policemen, even if it had them, to round up people standing in a field watching a hare coursing event. That simply will not be in its operational interests.
Rob Marris: There seems to be a contradiction in the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. On the one hand, he is saying that aiding and abetting is an offence under existing common law anyway. On the other, he decries a new offence being created by subsection (1)(b). Which is it?
Mr. Garnier: I do not think that there is anything contradictory about what I am saying. I am suggesting that if the common law covers the situation of someone who aids, abets or procures, leave it at that. If the Government want to say that from next Wednesday it will be an offence to hold a hare coursing event, as long as the evidence is there to trap those who aid, abet, counsel, procure or whatever, there is no need for these fancy subsections.
The Government must explain whether, as I suspect, they think that there is inadequate protection under the common law and that therefore
Column Number: 1016
they have to draft additional subsections to catch everyone. In fact, we need more than an explanation. We need complete and incontrovertible justification for such an extension of the criminal law.
One can take amusing examples, such as that which my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) gave of rambling in Lancashire. He would make a fetching sight in a pillow case. We can jest about that, but there is a serious point behind it. We are not simply getting demob happy and having fun as we approach the end of proceedings. We are in the business of extending the criminal law—at least the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is—with the possible result that people will go to prison. They will certainly be fined, and property such as vehicles may be confiscated as a direct consequence of the legislation.
If the hon. Gentleman is happy with that, good for him. I am not, and the Government must justify an extension of the criminal law. To return to the general thrust of my argument, the Government should address the distinction between attendance as a non-paying volunteer and attendance as a paying ticket holder. Their answer will greatly influence how the public think about the Bill.
I can see analogies, such as the recent cases dealing with what I believe are called ''celebrities'' who download child pornography. Many people have commented in the newspapers or on television or radio that such people are not committing a crime—they simply download pictures to their computers, but do not take part in the original offence. I do not buy that argument. By downloading, they are encouraging the manufacturers of pornographic material to abuse children or put them on their websites.
I can see a further analogy with fences who handle stolen goods. If it were not an offence to handle stolen goods, the people who encouraged thieving to order would not be deterred. A market in stolen goods would then develop even further because the end market user—the wholesaler—would not be caught and implicated in the criminal activities of the principal thief.
We are dealing here with someone who simply attends. I suggest that he is not encouraging, like a porn downloader or a professional fence, the committing of a criminal offence. The offence—the coursing event—will presumably already have been organised. Those who wish to participate in the criminal coursing event will own dogs or be in syndicates that own dogs. They will have their own members of staff or associates who will have arranged the field and got the slippers and the others to make the event possible. However, I suggest that those who simply turn up and watch can in no way be implicated in the criminal activity. I do not think that they can be legitimately accused of having encouraged or counselled it or aided and abetted its taking place, as their attendance or non-attendance makes no difference to whether the criminal event will take place. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West disagrees.
Column Number: 1017
|
