CRIMINAL EVIDENCE (WITNESS ANONYMITY) BILL

I am writing to let you have details of the amendments to the Bill I have tabled for Commons Committee stage.

The amendments are as follows;

(i) Sunset clause

In my oral statement on 26 June I gave a firm commitment to subsume the provisions of the Bill into the Law Reform, Victims and Witnesses Bill in order to allow further and fuller debate in the 4th session. New clause (Expiry of power to make witness anonymity orders) gives statutory force to this undertaking by providing for the legislation to cease to have effect from 31 December 2009. As a backstop, we have provided for this date to be extendable on an annual basis, by affirmative order. The new clause also preserves any witness anonymity order made before the expiry of the Act.

(ii) Additional clause 5(2) consideration: sole/decisive evidence

This amendment would add to the list of considerations in clause 5(2) a court must have regard to when deciding whether to grant a witness anonymity. This new consideration would require the court to have regard to whether the evidence from the anonymous witness might be the sole or decisive evidence against the defendant

(iii) Express provision for both parties to be heard before the judge determines an application for a witness anonymity order

It is already the practice for both parties to be given an opportunity to make representations before a witness anonymity order is made. This amendment would set out explicitly on the face of the Bill the right of the defence to make representations on an application for anonymity. The amendment makes clear that the court retains the power to exclude the defence from any part of the proceedings. This would also allow for the court to hear an initial ex parte application made by the prosecutor to be followed by a second inter partes stage where the defence made representations based on information they had received in redacted form about the witness.

In addition to these amendments, there are two technical and drafting amendments. The first of these amends clause 6(1) so that it refers back to both clauses 4 and 5. The second amendment is to clause 7(1) (qualifying the reference to a jury) to ensure consistency with similar references in clauses 2(4) and 10(6).