Thank you, Chair. You've already touched quite a bit on the issue of the public interest test. Is there anything else you'd like to put on record about the factors that the CPS would be taking into consideration when applying the public interest test in respect of this Bill?
Can I give you an example, which might illustrate the way in which things could be different? This is one, which—I give credit to Iwan for this, because he thought of it. If we take an adult with a small child—say, a four-year-old—in a supermarket, and the child is pulling cans off the shelves, it's quite annoying, and they keep doing it and keep doing it. The parent remonstrates, and the parent ends up finding that verbal admonishment is inadequate, and smacks the child lightly on the legs, which does the trick and the child stops. Presently, if someone in that supermarket were to report that to the police, I think the police would probably conclude that that is covered by the defence of reasonable chastisement. In other words, the evidential stage wouldn't be passed; you don't get on to consider the public interest. But if we have that same parent in there the following week, and you have the same happen again, presently, the defence would apply. Now, there comes a point in time when the defence stops applying. If that defence didn't apply at all, and we had a sequence of three offences, the public interest test would kick in, if I may put it like that, pretty quickly, because it would be repeated behaviour. So, that would be the distinction between how things are now and how they would be in the future, because the defence would not be available, so the public interest test would then come to the fore that much more quickly. So, when we apply the public interest test, the essence of it is about proportionality, and trying to come up with an approach that is proportionate to the offending. We look at the age of the offender, the age of the victim, we look at the circumstances, we look at the impact upon the victim, we look at the impact that's likely in relation to the suspect, and there is, within the code, a long list of matters that we take into account. Some of them are fairly obvious, such as previous convictions. If someone's got previous convictions for doing something wrong, it's more likely they're going to be prosecuted the next time. But there's no part of the law that says that prosecution will always follow. Mostly, it's reasonably obvious; the more serious an offence, the more likely you are to be prosecuted.
Thank you, that's really useful, and—
Just before you move on, can I ask you a question? This morning the committee was meeting with groups of parents who are opposed to the Bill and groups of parents who are for the Bill, and one of the parents this morning was querying where the interests of the child would come into the public interest test. Now, I've looked at the code and there is a section about impact on the victim. Can you just clarify for the record how the best interests of the child would be taken into account in considering whether to go forward with a prosecution?