Detention Without Trial

Increasing this limit to ninety days is a bit like using a shotgun to kill mice. It might work, but you leave a lot of other damage.

As someone involved in computing, science and technology for nearly forty years, the real problem is the slowness that the Home Office and the police adopt good new ideas. In 1972, I worked with a group that realised that such things as automatic numberplate recognition was possible and could be implemented in ten years. It finally came on stream only a few years ago. The key to solving our problems is to get the best brains to work on promising projects and fund them properly.

In addition, telephone tap and e-mail evidence should be available in court. The reason they are not, is that if they were, then we would all know how many of us have our phones regularly tapped. It is not a small number.

Perhaps too, we should also allow those charged with offences to be investigated for other crimes. That way someone in possession of explosives could be charged for that simple offence and then investigated for something much more serious.