In the first of an exclusive three-part series on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, Michael Zander focuses on the highlights (& lowlights) of Pts 1 to 4
- Protection of the Police etc; Prevention, Investigation & Prosecution of Crime; Public Order; and Unauthorised encampments.
This huge Bill runs to 295 pages—13 Parts, 176 clauses, 20 Schedules. The House of Commons voted to give the Bill its Second Reading by 359 to 263 after a debate on 15 and 16 March.
Labour moved an amendment to refuse a Second Reading—‘because the Bill rushes changes to protest law and fails to introduce a single new measure specifically designed to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and is therefore an abusers’ charter since domestic abuse rates have spiked and victims of rape are facing the lowest prosecution rates on record, and because the Bill fails to criminalise street harassment, fails to make misogyny a hate crime, fails to raise minimum sentences for rape or stalking, and fails
