NEW children’s legislation could waste police time and be seen as soft on crime. Proposals going before the States next month would see 17-year-olds treated as juveniles.

Home minister Mike Torode yesterday raised concerns about extra workload on an already busy system.

Reassurances have left him unconvinced that a responsible adult will not need to be present when police interview 17-year-olds.

‘Health minister Peter Roffey says there’s no problem because of Pace [Police Powers and Criminal Evidence] regulations, but now we have this children’s legislation which in my interpretation requires anyone up to 18 to have a responsible adult present,’ he said.

‘At the moment there are 500 people a year requiring the presence of a responsible adult and it’s very difficult to get responsible adults out when [suspects are] 16; nearer 18 will be near impossible for the police service.’

Deputy Torode is to contact the Law Officers for clarification as to whether Pace or the new children’s law will be overriding.

‘All the proposal will do is transfer some of the workload from the Magistrate’s Court to the new juvenile panel,’ he said.

‘That’s entirely up to the people organising the panel to resource it with enough people to cope.

‘It’s an issue. Unless they beef up the administrative system for the juvenile system it will just add to the daily workload.’

Generally it takes five to six weeks for juvenile cases to come to court, with a full sitting one afternoon each week.

‘The system is only really effective if you deal with them fairly quickly after commission of the offence and the juvenile system does not just deal with criminality, but also people who might be in need of care and attention – it’s a fairly heavy workload.’

The Home minister also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the proposed panel system.

‘I suspect there will be a practical downside, there will be people approaching their 18th birthday who regard it as a soft option, but we’re assured by the minister it will not be.’

Deputy Roffey thought the Home department was fairly mellow about the proposals, ‘so long as any time police do an interview there doesn’t have to be a responsible adult present’.

He said there was not perceived to be a problem because under Pace guidance an adult was not needed when a 17-year-old was interviewed.

And Deputy Roffey played down concerns about traffic offenders creating a backlog.

‘We will undertake to look at that as part of the drafting process to address that issue; you could say the same thing about 16-year-olds and traffic but I don’t think it’s a major problem,’ he said.

‘The law, if approved, will be months in the drafting and we’re happy to talk to anybody at that stage.’

He pointed out that in the UK, 17-year-olds also committed traffic offences and the system did not have a problem.

‘The novel factor we have is 14 and 15-year-old kids committing traffic offences. For that reason the new panels won’t be dealing with traffic offences.’

The tribunal system is modelled on Scotland where traffic offences by people this young are not an issue, he added.

‘We’ve decided people are adult at 18. It would seem going to adult court at that stage is appropriate and it will bring us in line with other places as well.’

During consultation, he added, the only group who had any problems with the proposals was the former Home Affairs Committee, now the Home Department.

He believed that those had been addressed.