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Post charge questioning and notification requirement

Post charge questioning and notification requirement

7 At present, after charge, the police can only interview defendants to clarify earlier statements, where public safety is at risk or where, if the defendant agrees, new evidence comes to light. The CPS state that invariably defendants decline to be interviewed. We are considering legislation so that in terrorist cases suspects can be questioned after charge on any aspect of the offence for which they have been charged. Where a subject refuses to answer questions but then later relies on something they had the opportunity to mention previously, for example an alibi, then adverse inferences could be drawn from this where it is reasonable to do so.

8 In addition we are considering notification requirements similar to those for Sex Offenders once convicted terrorists leave prison.

Comments

re section 8 - What purpose would be served by having such notification requirements? It seems rather pointless to me.

@ Richard - Given the utter failure of the Sex Offenders Register to actually prevent further sex crimes, why should a Terrorist Offender Register be any more successful ?

This tiny paragraph 8 seems to be the entirety of the policy, without any clear aims as to exactly what it is intended to achieve or how, or how much it will cost to implement.

Terrorists who have been sentenced to life imprisonment, will already have address and foreign travel reporting requirements imposed on them if they are ever allowed out of prison on licence.

If they are thought to pose any sort of danger to the public, then they should not ever be released on licence from a life sentence.

What is the point of a Terrorist Offender Register for those who have been convicted of a lesser terrorist crime e.g. 7 years in prison for an an offence under section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, for collecting information which may perhaps be of some use to a terrorist, somewhere, sometime ?

This sort of conviction will already appear on any Criminal Records Bureau check for employment purposes.

What evidence is there that convicted terrorists can never change their opinions or give up violence for the rest of their lives ? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, especially if there have been political changes regarding the situation which led them into violence in the first place. Terrorists are not suffering from a pathological medical condition or personality disorder, which can never be cured, like some, but not all, of the worst Sex Offenders.

Elsewhere, the document talks about "community cohesion" - how will this be enhanced by such a Terrorist Offender Register, if any of the details are made available to the wider public ? Surely that will increase sectarian violence and vigilantism against the now released offenders who hav, supposedly, "paid their debt to society", and against innocent members of their families.

Given that the Labour Government is already trying to inflict on the whole population of the UK, via its controversial and unpopular ID Cards / National Identity Register scheme, the sort of name and address registration and change notification requirements which are already comparable with those under the Sex Offender Register, then what is the point of this idea of a Terrorist Offender Register, except to pander to tabloid newspaper headlines ?

Note the legislation on which such measures may build. see http://freecommonwealth.blogspot.com/2007/09/juggernaut-of-subjection_13.html