Liberty's Second Reading Briefing on the Counter-Terrorism & Security Bill in the House of Commons

absconded. 46 As the JCHR has noted “the very nature of a TPIM carries an inherent risk of
the subject absconding”. 47 While relocation may make absconds marginally less likely,
without 24 hour surveillance, it will remain a possibility for those determined not to comply
with the punishing measures. If 24 hour surveillance is to be applied, why not monitor the
suspect for evidence gathering purposes without tipping them off
36. TPIMs further undermine security by acting as an impediment to prosecution. In
2010/2011 former DPP, Lord Macdonald QC oversaw the Home Office review of counterterrorism
and security powers and concluded -
“The evidence obtained by the Review has plainly demonstrated that the present control
order regime acts as an impediment to prosecution. It places those suspected of
involvement in terrorist activity squarely in an evidence limbo: current control powers can
relocate suspects and place them under curfews for up to 16 hours a day, they can
forbid suspects from meeting and speaking with other named individuals, from travelling
to particular places, and from using telephones and the internet. In other words, controls
may be imposed that precisely prevent those very activities that are apt to result in the
discovery of evidence fit for prosecution, conviction and imprisonment.” 48
He further reported -
“We may safely assume that if the Operation Overt (airline) plotters had, in the earliest
stages of their conspiracy, been placed on control orders and subjected to the full gamut
of conditions available under the present legislation, they would be living amongst us
still, instead of sitting for very long years in the jail cells where they belong.” 49
It was claimed that TPIMs would better reconcile the public policy aim of prosecution with
preventative detention. However the JCHR reported earlier this year that it “failed to find any
evidence that TPIMs have led in practice to any more criminal prosecutions for terrorism
46 Ibrahim Magag absconded on 26 December 2012 and Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed on 1
November 2013. As far as we are aware neither has been found.
47 Joint Committee on Human Rights Post Legislative Scrutiny: TPIM Act 2011, 15 January 2014.
48 Review of Counter-terrorism & Security Powers, A Report by Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, QC,
January 2011, page 9, available at -
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97971/report-by-lordmcdonald.pdf.
49 Ibid.