Children: Covert Human Intelligence Sources

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is right, especially given the events of the past few weeks,

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, are there guidelines which restrict the use of children in this way to cases where the suspected offences are very grave indeed and where there are no other means available to obtain necessary evidence?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord will appreciate that I cannot talk about operational matters. I hope he will be comforted by the fact that the use of a juvenile as a covert human intelligence source is only in exceptional circumstances.