Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak on Amendment 61. I did not speak at Second Reading, for which I apologise to your Lordships’ House. I lacked the ingenuity of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, in moving an amendment to the Bill. I pay tribute to her for doing so. Everything she said about Amendment 61 was right. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for pursuing this issue with her usual persistence and eloquence. I am grateful to her for having involved me in some of the meetings that she organised.

My first point is that evidence derived from a computer is hearsay. There are very good reasons why we treat hearsay evidence with caution. To admit hearsay evidence is a step in itself, but to presume that it is reliable is a giant stride beyond that.

Secondly, we are all aware of how frequently we have to redo the programming on our Apple iPhones or whatever, partly because of bugs in the programming of the computer technology on which we rely so much. Bugs are inevitable in computer programmes. That was why Fujitsu—I hope the Minister will answer the point about whether Fujitsu has paid, or might pay, any money to the taxpayer or to the sub-postmasters— had an office dedicated not just to altering the sub- postmasters’ balances, shocking as that was, but to altering and amending a programme that was never going to be perfect, because no computer programme is. If computer programmes are inherently unreliable, to have a presumption in law that they are reliable is unsustainable.

Thirdly, the consequences of the repeal of Section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—which, I remind your Lordships, happened partly because the Post Office asked for it to happen to make its prosecutions easier for it—were that Seema Misra was sent to prison when she was eight weeks pregnant and on her son’s 10th birthday. She collapsed when she was sentenced. This is an urgent matter. If we leave it in place, further injustices may happen as soon as tomorrow.

That is the first point about why it is urgent. The second point about why it is urgent is that any defence lawyer, in any event, will point to the Horizon case and say that it is perfectly obvious that this presumption is wrong. It is perfectly obvious. We cannot, in all good conscience, permit to continue in law a presumption which we know to be incorrect, and I hope that the Minister will at least set out a path to changing it.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I too support Amendment 61 in the name of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti.

When I left my home in Durham on Monday morning, I had a phone call. It was from an individual I had met five years earlier. He was the husband of a postmistress in Northumberland who had been prosecuted by the Post Office. She was prosecuted in 1998. He was ringing me to tell me that on the Saturday morning, she had received the letter overturning her conviction under the Horizon Post Office scandal.

I met the couple five years ago. They had a thriving business and were well respected in the community—a small village in Northumberland. They now live in a small council house in the same village. As they explained to me when I sat in their living room, everyone still thinks, “That is the woman who stole the money from the Post Office”.

That woman was traumatised. That is the only word I can use. She had blanks in her mind. It was very difficult for me to get the information from her, so traumatised she was. That woman has suffered for nearly 30 years. She has now got that letter saying that she did nothing wrong and can now hold her head up high in her community. As I said to her husband, that must be an unbelievable feeling.

That couple are going to get compensation—quite rightly—but, as the husband said, that is not important. The important thing was that woman’s and their family’s good name. That was ruined, because computer evidence, as the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, just said, was used to persecute a decent, hard-working woman.

Over the last 15 or 16 years that the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and I have been campaigning on this, I have met many victims of this scandal. They are decent, ordinary people whom you pass in the street. If you were their friend, you would consider it a privilege. Their lives have been completely ruined. That is because the presumption was that the computer had to be right. It was classed as a mechanical machine and that this could not be infallible.

The judiciary needs to take some blame in the Post Office scandal, because I have read many court transcripts of the cases. I think of one. There was a postmistress from County Durham called June Tooby, who was not involved in the Horizon case but the pre-Horizon scheme—Capture. She was an absolutely marvellous woman and she defended herself in court. She said to the judge that her argument was that the computer was wrong and gave the reasons why. He dismissed her completely out of hand and would not listen to her that somehow this was a possibility.

That is not the only case that I have seen where judges have taken the approach of completely dismissing that. I am not one for attacking our judiciary, but I get annoyed when judges get on their high horse and say that somehow they cannot be criticised. The judiciary played a part in this scandal and must take responsibility for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, said that this is urgent. It is urgent. My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said that the consultation started on 21 January 2025. Sarah Sackman, the then Minister, said at the opening of that consultation:

“We must learn the lessons of the Post Office scandal … Ensuring people are protected from miscarriages of justice is … one part of the government’s Plan for Change”.


That was over a year ago. I know that things move very slowly in this Government and that things sometimes have gestation periods longer than that of an African elephant, but this cannot wait. I urge the Minister. We do not want any more reviews or need any more consultations. That seems to be the in word these days—if you do not want to make a decision, have a consultation or say, “We are considering it”. This is now urgent.

I congratulate my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti on tabling this amendment. It must be done in this Bill. It cannot wait. Speaking for myself—and, I think, on behalf of my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot —we will not let this rest. This is the opportunity for the Government to put this right. I would love to know what the Ministry of Justice has been doing for the last year because it is a very simple thing; nor is it controversial. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, has just said, people will still be found guilty. There will be more victims if we do not change this. This would also send a clear signal to those victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal that this Government are taking this seriously.

I say, very gently, to the Minister, not to come back with, “We’re going to review it” or that there is some next stage to go through. Frankly, I am getting sick of this. My heart drops when I hear of another review or consultation. It seems to be a great “Yes Minister” way of kicking things into the long grass. This cannot be kicked into the long grass. I am determined that it will not be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on to Amendment 62, would she please comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about the Law Society’s contribution to the consultation about a system of assurances? That may be a way forward that might allow her to bring forward her own amendment on Report.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

That is exactly what the Government are evaluating. I cannot go any further than that today, but those are all the things that are being considered. I cannot go any further than to say that I am listening.

I turn to Amendment 62, in the names of my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Lawrence. I am very aware of these issues, particularly in relation to rap and drill. I knew about this amendment, but in the course of my practice and when I was a judge I have been to a number of lectures on the subject and read a number of articles, including some by Keir Monteith, King’s Counsel, who I see is sitting below the Bar today.

The question here, on the use of this material, is one of relevance. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I do not want to go into a boring exegesis of when evidence is admissible and when it is not. The real concern here is to make sure that if—and it is a big if—this evidence is to be used then it has proper probative value, on the basis that it goes further than either that this defendant is a bad person because they like rap and drill music or, even worse, some spurious and crude racial stereotypes. Judges have a duty to ensure that only evidence meeting these standards is adduced and they should exclude any evidence that does not meet the required threshold—that is not a matter of discretion. However, I understand the concerns about the fact that that has not happened in all cases.

It is axiomatic to say that creative and artistic expression is of itself not a crime, and it is rare that it would feature in the evidence of a prosecution unless it inherently involved criminal activity, such as damaging another person’s property with graffiti or drawing sexual images of children. As for musical expression, the Crown Prosecution Service is clear that creating or listening to music is not a crime, but it says that, on occasion, it has encountered cases where, upon investigation into a violent offence, it became clear that drill and rap music had been used in the build-up to encourage or incite violence or to reveal information about a crime that only the attackers would know. These instances are rare and, importantly, are already subject to rigorous scrutiny under existing evidential rules. However, I am aware of the disquiet, and we understand the community concerns.

I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Lawrence. I am a lover of crime fiction but I do not think anyone is ever going to use that in a prosecution against me—well, I hope they do not. She makes a valid point.

The Crown Prosecution Service is actively consulting on this matter through a public consultation, seeking views on whether formal prosecution guidance should be issued regarding the use of musical expression evidence. We want to ensure that any future approach is clear and informed by a wide range of perspectives.

It is the Government’s view that, as currently drafted, the amendment would be unduly restrictive and would, in effect, frustrate the ability of the Crown to adduce relevant and probative evidence before the court, with the potential consequences of frustrating justice for victims in some serious cases. The Government intend to await the outcome of the CPS consultation and announce next steps in due course. I invite all noble Lords not to press their amendments.