Member

However, although the distinction from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, was undoubtedly accurate and helpful in context, circumscribed as it was by “generally requires”, it is impossible to separate those two ideas of what someone is and what someone has become by reason of life experience in the context of deciding whether they need pre-sentence reports. A person may be of a particular race, and may suffer discrimination and abuse as a result. What is causing that person’s vulnerability? Is it their race or the result of the abuse and discrimination? All the amendments in this first group highlight this artificiality and, frankly, its unhelpful- ness in the context of a statute, as opposed to the speech from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, in the House of Lords on the unhelpfulness of this distinction. Here I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, and my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Beith.