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David Cameron: junior minister sparked Kenneth Clarke rape row



Downing Street believes prisons minister Crispin Blunt prompted debate on rape with ill-chosen words in the House of Commons
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Crispin Blunt, the junior prisons minister, has been living on borrowed time since upsetting Downing Street last July. Photograph: Tom Hevezi/PA


David Cameron is privately furious with Kenneth Clarke for handing the press an easy stick with which to beat the government.

The prime minister believes Clarke showed a "tin ear" when he appeared to suggest on Wednesday that some rape cases are more serious than others. The remarks by the justice secretary on BBC Radio Five Live united the left and right in condemning the government for apparently failing to understand the gravity of a crime that was a capital offence until 1841.

But the prime minister's real anger is directed at Crispin Blunt, the junior prisons minister, in Clarke's Ministry of Justice. Government sources indicated in July last year that Blunt was likely to have a short shelf life as a minister after he provoked the tabloids when he announced a relaxation of rules governing prison parties.

Now Blunt has once again annoyed the prime minister who believes he is to blame for sparking the debate over rape. No 10 has been poring over the Hansard records of the monthly session of justice questions in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Blunt irritated No 10 by singling out rape suspects as he explained government plans to increase the discount for early guilty pleas from a third to half the sentence. These plans are now on hold.

Jack Straw, the former home secretary, raised the issue:


At present, a defendant entering an early guilty plea will earn up to a third off the sentence that would otherwise apply. The government are proposing to replace that with a discount of a half, a move which is opposed by the judiciary and many others. How on earth will giving a half off a sentence help to protect the public?

Blunt replied:


I would have thought that a moment's reflection would make that clear. Let us suppose that someone who is accused of rape co-operates with the authorities at the first opportunity, rather than puts their victim through the entire process of having to be prepared to give evidence and then having to give evidence. That is one example where there is a definitive benefit to the victim from encouraging the earliest possible guilty plea.

The quick thinking shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan, spotted the significance of Blunt's remarks. Towards the end of the session he challenged Clarke who replied that the discount proposal was likely to "survive" when the government's plans are published.

Khan asked:


The Lord Chancellor has announced plans – this was raised by the previous Lord Chancellor [Jack Straw] – to reduce by half the sentence for an offender if he or she pleads guilty. In a remarkably flippant response [Crispin Blunt] asked us to pause and reflect on the thoughts and views of a victim of rape. It is not only Labour MPs who think this is nonsense, nor only judges or victims groups: the Lord Chancellor's own Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses says that it is bonkers. Will [you] reconsider?

Clarke replied:


We are going to give the outcome of our consultation shortly, but I think that that proposal is likely to survive. The fact is that we have always had a reduced tariff for early guilty pleas in this country. It always startles the public when they discover that this has underlined our sentencing policy for many years. It is true that we are thinking of putting up the reduction to a half.

It makes an enormous difference to costs, police time and the involvement of unnecessary preparations for trial if everybody leaves guilty pleas to the last possible moment. As [Crispin Blunt] rightly said, victims and witnesses are put through an ordeal if they are preparing for a trial where they expect to be accused of lying because the man has not been induced to plead at an early enough stage. Those are the considerations that lay behind this proposal.

A ministerial source told me:


Crispin is in No 10's sights. In the prime minister's eyes he has placed himself in that special box reserved for MPs who succeed in marginalising themselves.

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