Mark Durkan – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Durkan on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of removing the reasonable person test in defence for children from the Modern Slavery Bill.

Karen Bradley

The statutory defence is an important additional protection for victims of
modern slavery who have been compelled to commit certain offences as a direct
consequence of their slavery or trafficking situation. In addition, the Crown
Prosecution Service will continue to use its discretion to not charge an
offence or discontinue a prosecution which is not required, in the public
interest.

It is imperative that the defence protects child victims of modern slavery from
being inappropriately criminalised whilst also avoiding providing complete
immunity for the most serious categories of offending. The reasonable person
test is an important safeguard in ensuring that the defence cannot be abused.

The defence for child victims has been amended in the House of Lords to remove
the requirement for compulsion and we have also tabled an amendment at Lord’s
Report of the Modern Slavery Bill to the reasonable person test for child
victims to make it easier for child victims to gain protection from the
statutory defence. This amendment will remove the reference to the child having
no realistic alternative to committing the offence and will mean that once the
defence is raised, the prosecution would have to show beyond reasonable doubt
that the child acted unreasonably in committing the offence.