Theresa May ignores bail bill critics as she rushes law through

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Lawyers say move to overturn ruling on 96-hour limit on holding suspects is a 'smash and grab raid' boosting police powers
Theresa May, who is to ask MPs to pass an emergency bill to resolve the police bail crisis
Theresa May, who is to ask MPs to pass an emergency bill to resolve the police bail crisis. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

The home secretary, Theresa May, has slapped down critics of her emergency legislation to resolve the police bail crisis being rushed through the Commons, arguing they are ignoring the reality of policing.

Defence lawyers have warned the legislation, which overturns a Salford district court ruling that time spent on bail must count towards the 96-hour limit on holding suspects without charge, amounts to a "smash and grab raid" that boosts police powers.

"The idea that some have put forward, that this judgment means that the police should in some way just 'work quicker' to gather evidence, simply ignores the reality of policing. DNA and forensic tests, for example, take time. Identifying, contacting and interviewing witnesses takes time. Analysing intelligence takes time. That is all time that this judgment takes away from the police," the home secretary said, moving the second reading of the police (detention and bail) bill in the Commons on Thursday. The legislation, which completed all its Commons stages in just four and a half hours, will be retrospective as it will be "deemed always to have had effect" despite the Salford judgment. The Lords is due to debate the bill on Monday and it is expected to reach the statue book on Tuesday.

May said the bill would restore vital powers to the police that had existed for 25 years until the Salford court ruling in April. Only fast-track legislation could give the police the "certainty and immediacy in restoring the law as it was understood to operate".

The home secretary again denied Labour claims she could have acted quicker in dealing with the crisis insisting that the full implications of the original ruling did not become clear until 30 June.

But the solicitors who applied for the original court ruling that triggered the bail crisis say the emergency legislation will simply encourage an emerging police practice of "bail and see" rather than carrying out inquiries as a matter of urgency.

Their warning comes as a cross-party group of peers raises concerns that legislating in such highly unusual circumstances undermines the constitutional principle of the separation of political powers and the rule of law.

The rush follows a ruling by a district judge in Salford, upheld by the high court, that has thrown into doubt the legal position of 85,000 police suspects currently out on bail.

The ruling overturned 25 years of police practice under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which allows suspects to be held only for 96 hours before they are charged or released. The ruling said that periods spent on bail should also count towards the 96-hour "detention clock" limit.

The supreme court, which is to hear a full appeal on the issue on 25 July, earlier this week dismissed an application to suspend the original ruling pending that hearing.

The home secretary's bill simply reverses that by saying time spent on bail will not count towards the 96-hour limit, only time spent in detention.

But Joseph Kotrie-Monson of the solicitors who represented Paul Hookway, the murder suspect in the original case, says the legislation being rushed through will widen police powers, not prevent chaos.

"The judgment in Hookway should have been a wake-up call in respect of this new emerging police practice of 'bail and see' rather than interview and investigate properly at the front end."

He said a slow shift had occurred over the 25 years that the police and criminal evidence act had been in force in which initial investigation and proper effective interrogation up to 96 hours after arrest has been replaced in practice by excessively long bail periods.

In the Hookway case, the ruling that the 96-hour limit had been reached came five months after the murder suspect was initially arrested and had been repeatedly bailed.

The House of Lords constitution committee expressed concerns on Thursday that the emergency legislation was being rushed through before the supreme court appeal hearing.

"We are concerned that, in the understandable rush to rectify a problem which the police have identified as being serious and urgent, insufficient time has been allowed for parliament fully to consider the constitutional implications of what it is being asked to do," says the committee's report.