Citizenship and Immigration committee  No, because the role of the special advocate is the role of an advocate, not a judge. So you always have to be able to convince the judge. In all the cases I was involved with, not only did I cross-examine security officers as witnesses, but I also made a closing speech to the court.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes. It was a balancing exercise, because initially I stayed in there, after the new legislation was introduced in 2001, because like other special advocates and like most lawyers, I thought I might be able to make a difference by staying in. But eventually I felt I had to balance what little difference I might make by being in there against the fact that I was legitimizing a form of indefinite detention, on reasonable suspicion merely, for an indefinite period.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm very pleased to have had the opportunity to talk to you and share some of these thoughts with you. I hope they will be of assistance to you in all your deliberations. Thank you.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  First of all, I would imagine that one of the questions that arises is whether the person should be held in detention or on bail, and in fact a number of the Belmarsh detainees, because their mental health had deteriorated to such a very large extent, were eventually let out on bail.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, I've certainly come across it. I haven't mentioned it in my paper, but in fact particularly after 7/7 there was an enormous increase in racially aggravated crimes throughout the city areas where black and Asian populations lived. Of course the attackers couldn't distinguish a Sikh from a Muslim, so they just attacked them anyway.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I'm not certain that it's actually true. I think the government realized that for detention or complete house arrest, those methods aren't really getting them or us anywhere in terms of being better protected. House arrest means they're not allowed to use the telephone, they're not allowed to have visitors, and their children can't have other children in to play.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, they don't have the original stuff. If you get an assessment from another intelligence service, you don't have the original. If there's an informer who is speaking to Algerian intelligence, you're not going to have access to that informer to know whether or not the information is reliable.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes, but I think there is room for a special advocate, particularly on issues of discovery.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think it would be very difficult, because I've seen the amount of time and the number of people who are used to collect, for example, telephone evidence in terrorist trials. There is an enormous amount of legwork that's involved, particularly if you're looking at sources of e-mails or mobile phones--an enormous amount of work.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Yes.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Well, yes, but I've recently been working as defence counsel in criminal trials, and I am currently doing so. I was involved in one of the big control order cases, and when the court of appeal quashed the control order on my client, who was under some form of house arrest, he disappeared before the police could serve a new and less restrictive control order on him—and no one knows where he is.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  No. I think where special advocates have in fact been quite useful is not in the area I've been talking about. It's where they've been used in criminal trials and in some terrorist criminal trials to look at the undisclosed evidence and to argue with the judge in private session that it should be disclosed.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Do you want me to answer that first?

Citizenship and Immigration committee  As far as the numbers are concerned, there are actually very few people. About 24 people were detained. And of course they had an option if they wanted to go to another country, or found a country they could go to. One of the detainees, it was discovered, had dual French nationality.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I think that balance between public safety and fundamental liberties and human rights is really at the heart of all this. Perhaps I can quote Lord Hoffman, who is one of the judges in the Belmarsh detainees case. In his judgment, he said: I said that the power of detention is at present confined to foreigners and I would not like to give the impression that all that was necessary was to extend the power to United Kingdom citizens as well.