Brown may lift ban on wiretap evidence in court

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will make a statement to parliament on Wednesday about the prospect of allowing wiretap evidence to be used in court, and some media predicted he might lift the ban on the practice.

Britain is one of the few countries in the world that does not allow telephone taps to be used as evidence in trials.

The security services fear that allowing taps to be used as evidence in court would expose their tactics.

But opposition political parties and civil rights groups have both long called for the ban to be lifted, arguing that this would allow more convictions in terrorism cases and allow the government to lift some harsh anti-terrorism measures.

Channel Four News said a government review of the issue, which Brown is to present to parliament on Wednesday, would pave the way for lifting the ban.

But it said that a senior Whitehall official who had seen the review believed there were so many conditions attached and so much extra funding needed to implement it that the new law may be extremely limited in scope.

A spokeswoman for Brown's Downing Street Office confirmed that he would make a statement on the issue but declined to comment on what he would say.

Both the main opposition parties said a move to lift the ban, if confirmed, would be overdue.

"This sounds like a breakthrough. We have been calling for this for years. The use of intercept has proved vital to counter terrorist efforts almost everywhere else in the world," said Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis.

"We understand that Gordon Brown has said he is minded to accept this report and if he does we will help him deliver it."

Rights groups say lifting the ban would reduce the need for some of the government's harsher anti-terrorism policies - like lengthy detention without charge and "control orders" imposing restrictions on people the government says are dangerous but it lacks the evidence to convict of crimes.

"The use of intercept evidence is overdue and will help to bring many criminals to justice without resorting to desperate measures such as a further extension of the period of detention without charge or trial to 42 days," said Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne.

The issue of bugging has also come into the fore in recent days after it emerged that police bugged a member of parliament from Brown's Labour Party during a meeting in prison with a terrorism suspect from his constituency.