The latest crime Bill will slash civil liberties without providing a solution for preventing or punishing serious offences, says Jeremy Summers


The publication of the Serious Crime Bill on 17 January 2007 carried with it a dispiritingly familiar sense of déjà vu. The Home Office was under intense pressure, ministers were accused of failing to protect the public and, almost immediately, we had yet another 'tough on crime' soundbite initiative - the 'super ASBO' (anti-social behaviour order).



The Bill is intended to introduce new civil serious crime prevention orders that can be used against individuals and organisations, create new offences to outlaw encouraging or assisting someone to commit an offence, and improve data-sharing in the public sector and between the private and public sectors. The home secretary maintains that the reforms will enable the authorities to 'get the Mr Bigs of the organised crime world'.



All well and good, it might be thought. However, the new civil orders will allow courts to impose Draconian restrictions not just on those who have been convicted of a crime, but on people who, on the balance of probabilities, are merely believed to have acted in a way that has helped or was likely to help a serious crime. An order could similarly be imposed to prevent a perceived criminal harm occurring in the future. As such, the principle of innocent until proven guilty, which has been the golden thread of our system for centuries, will be dispensed with.



Despite not having been convicted of any crime, a person could have his bank account closed down, and be prevented from going to work, returning home, meeting people, using a mobile telephone or the internet, and travelling. While applicable to money laundering, drug trafficking and fraud, these powers can also be applied against those involved in freshwater fishing with prohibited instruments - organised crime indeed.



Leaving aside whether it is acceptable for a modern society continually to 'dumb down' its criminal law and ride roughshod over safeguards that are the envy of many jurisdictions, will the new powers work in practice? Even on this point, the evidence is far from encouraging for the government. The existing anti-social behaviour order system, aimed at low-level criminals, has been anything but a success, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that many regard the imposition of an order as a badge of honour. If the system is ineffective against these criminals, what chance has it of succeeding against organised crime? How will the orders be enforced and at what cost? The fact that Mr Big has been caught using the internet is likely to be of little comfort to Ms Small who has just had her house broken into.



As with so many government initiatives, there is an audible silence as to how it will be paid for. This only serves to reinforce the impression that policy is too often a reaction to the latest headline and in consequence has become disjointed. Reflecting this, the Bill also provides for the abolition of the Assets Recovery Agency. Introduced four years ago, it was billed as a flagship body that would 'hit criminals in the pocket'. Unfortunately, it has only recovered a fraction of its outlay from the criminals it was supposed to target. Therefore, the agency has been quietly shelved, having largely only hit the taxpayer in the pocket.



The perception of a confused law and order policy is only added to by the Treasury's apparent reluctance to fund more prison places. By the time of the next election, it is likely that Gordon Brown will be in charge and that reluctance may have taken on a greater significance.



Jeremy Summers is a partner in the fraud and regulatory investigations department at national law firm Russell Jones & Walker