Call to scrap terror control orders

THE government is facing fresh calls to scrap control orders on suspected terrorists after admitting the legal battle to maintain the system has cost more than £8 million.

Details of the costs were disclosed by the Home Office after it suffered a series of court defeats by terror suspects who claimed the detention arrangements breached their human rights.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has insisted the system remained an "important tool" to protect the public from terrorism.

And, in a separate report, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Lord Carlile, said that abandoning the regime entirely would have a "damaging effect on national security".

A draft order to renew the control order legislation was laid in parliament yesterday.

However, campaign group Liberty criticised the move.

Its policy director, Isabella Sankey, said: "Most people realise that control orders are both unsafe and unfair. Suspects are driven mad by endless punishment without charge but are so loosely supervised that many have disappeared.

"There are reams of criminal offences with which to charge terror suspects. The Home Office should stop trying to save face over this discredited policy and pass the case files to the CPS where they belong."

Shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said: "We have warned the government many times that control orders are not working.

"A Conservative government would launch a full review of the controversial control orders system with a view to reducing reliance on it."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "It is astonishing that the government remains so committed to control orders when they have taken such a beating in the courts. It is an affront to British justice to curtail people's freedom and place them under de facto house arrest without even telling them why."