I beg to move Amendment No. 528, in

Clause 122, page 72, line 5, leave out paragraph (b).

This is a probing amendment about partial, as opposed to total, video film being shown. Paragraph (b) is the second of two cumulative parts of subsection (3). Currently, in considering whether part of a recording should be not admitted—leaving the rest admitted—the court must consider two things. The first is

''whether admitting that part would carry risk of prejudice to the defendant.''

As the clause is drafted, the Government are changing the risk to the defendant by saying that, in spite of that, the court might consider that

''the interests of justice nevertheless require it to be admitted in view of the desirability of showing the whole, or substantially the whole, of the recorded interview.''

That is a theme that the hon. Member for North Down and others have reiterated throughout our debates. Can one have a fair trial if the risk of prejudice to the defendant, which the court is required to avoid, can be discarded by changing the rules to bring in part of a film?

I am concerned that the inclusion of subsection (3)(b) might mean that we will end up with something that the judge would decide is prejudicial to the defendant. We can all think of scenarios in which that would apply. There are occasions on which a film that might have been filmed over an hour or two has been chopped up and still includes things that the prosecution have argued should not be there. However, for reasons that would appear only in the defence case, they might be relevant. The defendant or a witness might think that they should be included. What appears to be a throwaway statement, such as, ''I was very tired that morning,'' or ''I had just left home at six o'clock,'' could appear to be irrelevant. The danger is that they might become relevant, but one does not know that at the time.

The trouble is that, as court proceedings unroll, decisions are made at the time on the evidence. Once the evidence is in the public domain, and this applies much more to a jury case than a magistrates case, one cannot stop a jury being aware of it. All a judge can do in such circumstances, if he decides that a mistake has been made, is to call a halt to the trial. He may decide that there is no longer a chance of a fair trial because

the jury have heard evidence that they should not have heard. They have seen half of a film when they should have seen it all, or vice versa. I raise the issue in an inquiring way. I am concerned that it risks prejudicing the right to a fair trial. That is a right that we all want to preserve and that we are obliged to preserve under the European convention.