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Debate on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – Second Reading

Martin Salter (Reading, West) (Lab): Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to meet Liz Longhurst from Reading, who has campaigned tirelessly for three years for precisely this measure to clamp down on extreme internet images, which she and many others are convinced directly led to the murder of her lovely daughter, Jane, in Brighton three years ago?
Mr. Straw: Thanks to my hon. Friend, I have indeed had an opportunity briefly to meet Mrs. Longhurst, and I would like to pay tribute to her on behalf of the whole House, and to express our sincere condolences for the grief that she and her family suffered as a result of this terrible murder of her daughter, Jane. I would also like to applaud the campaign that she has so skilfully and resolutely waged. I hope that the clauses in part 6 will at least go some way to meeting her concerns, although nothing, of course, can bring back her daughter or take away the grief that has been caused.
David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion) (Lab/Co-op): I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to confine my remarks to clauses 64 to 66 in part 6, which deal with extreme pornographic material.
Jane Longhurst, my constituent, was a respected and dedicated teacher at a school for children with learning difficulties in my constituency. It happens to be the last school where I taught before I retired from teaching, but we did not work there at the same time. Obviously, Jane’s murder caused concern throughout the whole community. During the trial of Graham Coutts, there was horror at the revelations about how she had died and the circumstances surrounding her death. Everyone was shocked.
I believe that it is because of the determination of Jane’s mother, Liz Longhurst, and other members of her family and the responsiveness of Ministers of this Government that those clauses are before us tonight. I welcome that. Liz Longhurst decided that her daughter’s death should not go unmarked and that the extreme pornographic images that had fuelled the fantasies of the man who was twice tried for Jane Longhurst’s murder—the family had to go through the
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horror of a trial twice—had to be dealt with. She launched a campaign, which, I am glad to say, received the backing of Amnesty International as part of its campaign against violence against women.
The campaign, aspects of which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) will want to discuss if he has the opportunity, received the backing of local newspapers. I must pay tribute to The Argus newspaper, published in my constituency, and particularly to Phil Mills, who was its chief crime reporter, although sadly no longer.
The campaign led to a 50,000-signature petition calling for action being presented in the House. There has been determination on the part of Mrs. Longhurst—the fact that we are discussing the issue is a tribute to her—and on the part of many of the predecessors of those on the Government Front Bench. I pay particular tribute to the former Home Secretaries, my right hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) and for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) for the sympathetic way in which they listened to the case for legislation that we put to them. I also pay tribute to other Ministers who have dealt with the matter—in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) and the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker).
We were determined that something should be done to tackle the pernicious trade in violent internet pornography. I welcome the way in which the Government have responded to the campaign. The provisions before us tonight do not go as far as many of us want, but they tackle an important aspect of the issue: the possession of those awful images. In doing so, they fulfil one of the requirements that the Lord Chancellor said in his opening remarks is an underlying principle of the Bill: to make sure that the law keeps pace not only with changing patterns of crime, but with technology and the way in which it affects patterns of crime. I wish we had proposals before us tonight to tackle at source the internet sites that purvey this material. However, that needs a degree of international co-operation that, sadly, despite the determination of Ministers, we have not yet been able to achieve—in the same way as we have achieved international co-operation to tackle child pornography. That is a further stage of the campaign.
The provisions do tackle possession. I ask the House to consider the comments of Jim Gamble, the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and, at the time he made the comments, the lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers in this area of criminality. He said:
“Legislation is only truly effective if it develops step by step with technological advances.”
The provisions start to address the issue of how the internet can be used to supplement this area of criminality and build on the fundamentals of obscene publications legislation.
Martin Salter: Will my hon. Friend also pay tribute to the Reading Evening Post for its support of the Longhurst campaign? More importantly, does he recognise that the campaign achieved the support of 180 MPs, who signed early-day motion 583 on the murder of Jane Longhurst and internet sites promoting necrophilia? We are talking about some of the most
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obscene and disturbing material, including internet sites such as Necrobabes, Death by Asphyxia, and Hanging Bitches. Does he agree that the provisions will not make a new offence of anything that is not already illegal? We are talking about material that is already illegal under obscene publications legislation. It is merely the possession of the images that will become a new criminal offence.
David Lepper: I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and agree with the points that he makes. I also welcome the commitment of Members on the Opposition Front Bench to support at least this part of the Bill, if not other aspects of it. Building on what my hon. Friend said, the explanatory notes that are available to us all make it clear that the intention of these clauses is not to restrict makers of narrative films or documentaries, or artists. The provisions are quite specific about the need to prove in court—and, I believe, to have the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions to take the matter to court—that the intention of those involved is very different from that of people producing works of fiction in a more mainstream way.
I welcome the fact that the Government have responded to the strong demand from the family of Jane Longhurst and all the organisations that have supported Jane’s family. None of us can really know the anguish that Mrs. Longhurst and other members of her family have been through over the four years since her daughter’s death. However, we have before us tonight legislation that, in some small way, when eventually passed, will be a memorial to a dedicated teacher and a wonderful daughter.