Okay, thank you. We have heard evidence as a committee that this proposed law would provide a much clearer legal framework—that is, to take out this reasonable punishment defence, that then would make things much clearer for parents and professionals. Does the CPS have a view on that?
I think it will make things clearer. I'm not sure it will make them much clearer, because if we get into some of the—. It may be helpful to look at some examples at some stage. And when it comes to prosecuting, it's often the case that things aren't just black and white; there are multiple shades of grey in between. We know that the Children Act did introduce a degree of clarity, in that it removed the defence of reasonable chastisement for offences of causing actual bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and various incidents of child cruelty under the Children and Young Persons Act. In that sense, matters were clarified, because up until that point it was not entirely clear. There were a series of Court of Appeal cases that sought to clarify the law, but that was at a time, at the end of the 1990s, the start of the 2000s, when we had the European convention on human rights and we had a quickly developing body of case law. And the Children Act was brought in to reflect the direction that the case law was moving in. A decision was clearly made back then in the early 2000s not to include common assault in the same category as actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm et cetera. So, there was a decision made back then that it was appropriate to do that. As we wind forward some 15 years, I have seen the research that suggests that some people see that the present legislation, and the way in which section 58 applies to reasonable chastisement for common assault of children—some people have interpreted that as saying that smacking is acceptable. I don't think that it is what it says, but there is a degree of confusion around that. And the reason why I say it's not as simple as that is, going back to my words a couple of minutes ago, it's rarely a case of being black and white; there are these degrees of grey. And removing that defence does make life clearer.
What are the areas of grey that you refer to? Can you give a few examples?
If you take an example—so, one of the examples that I've heard discussed has been a child—a young child; let's say a five-year-old child by the side of a road—who darts to go out in the path of moving traffic. The parent grabs hold of the child and pulls them back. Now, technically, taking hold of the child at that point is an assault, because it's an unwanted imposition of physical force. But no-one's going to say that's anything like an assault that should come to the criminal courts. Of course, that would be utter nonsense. There's no hostility; it's simply taking hold of a child to protect them. At that point, the parent then seeks to admonish the child, tells them off and smacks the child on the legs. Now, that would probably be seen under the present law as reasonable chastisement. Probably. But so much depends upon the circumstances, whether this is something that happens frequently with the child, the size of the child, the parent, the force of the slap, the way in which it's imposed. So, that, I would say, sits at one end of the spectrum. As we move towards the other end of the spectrum, we might have repeated smacking, shouting, maybe hitting the child over the head as well. So, there is a spectrum of offending. Towards one end of the spectrum we move much closer towards something that would be criminal in nature. There'll be a point at which it crosses the threshold from something that needs to be reported to the police, and the police would take some form of action, and then, as we move through the tiers, it'll reach a stage where the police think this is a case that should be prosecuted and they would bring it to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. We would then decide the most appropriate means of dealing with it. And the absolute other end of the spectrum here is one where we decide it's an offence that we think is so serious that it should be charged and brought before a criminal court. That would be very much towards the serious end of the spectrum of the type of behaviour that I've just described to you. Does that help to illustrate that, at one end, it's relatively white and the other end it's relatively black, but in the middle we have the shades of grey?