The Waugh Room

Wednesday 18th May 2011 | 14:06

Ken's Ken?

In the Lobby scrum after PMQs, a senior No.10 source was asked if today's sentencing row was just another case of "Ken's Ken".

"I wouldn't put it like that, no," the source replied.

There's no question that Downing Street are unhappy at the way Clarke caught them off-guard with his FiveLive remarks (and subsequent repetition on BBC and Sky).

Clarke claims he was trying to make a reasoned case for sentencing reform. But what stood out was the supercilious, high-handed tone with which he did it.

And when contrasted with a tearful victim of rape telling him how she suffered from someone let out on licence, his other-worldy insouciance became all too stark. Here is just one classic example: "I haven't put [my rape sentence reforms] to women who have been raped because I haven't met one recently". Nice.

Clarke then went on to attack the tabloids for actually highlighting the topic, claiming they use the word rape to their headlines to add a bit of "sexual excitement".

Enemies (and admirers) of Clarke have seen all this before. It's not so much what he says as the way he says it, with an almost wilful disregard for what voters will think.

His 'non-apology' this afternoon - he couldn't bring himself to utter the words 'regret' or 'apologise' - may have gone down like a lead balloon in Number 10 too.

Yet as the PM intimated in PMQs, the real issue is not so much the different definitions of rape (as he put it, the law itself distinguishes between those differences), but the idea of extending plea bargaining.

And this is where Clarke can't actually take all the blame. It looks like the actual policy of increasing plea bargain 'discounts' (as jail term cuts are known) has been rubber stamped by his colleagues.

The Home Affairs Commmittee, which is chaired by Nick Clegg no less, approved the idea yesterday. (In case you think this Cabinet committee is not important, check out its membership. It includes Osborne, May, IDS, Huhne, Gove, Hammond, Pickles...)

Downing Street's response to this is to say "we've not made any announcements" and "we're still consulting on it...we will set out the Government's full position in due course". That gives a bit of room for a U-turn but it sounds like the HA Committee will have to change its mind.

Anyway, perhaps the biggest blunder by Clarke was to underestimate how much he needed to get victims on board. He just assumed that they will welcome less court time in return for more guaranteed convictions for rape.

Unfortunately, for the Justice Secretary it looks like rape victims are actually more interested in that word in his ministerial title - justice.

I was contacted today by Sarah Hanner. Sarah was sexually assaulted by Michael Louis Purcell in 2002. She was cycling home in Oxford on a summer's night when she stopped by Purcell as he asked for directions. He pulled her off her bike and forced her into a nearby copse, where he indecently assaulted her.

Purcell was out on licence and it was the second time he had failed to return to prison as expected. He had already committed a string of sexual attacks and had been in the court system since the age of 9. Thanks to DNA evidence, the police tracked him down.

It took two years to bring Purcell to trial. When he finally was brought before the court, Sarah was offered the chance to give evidence behind a screen, but decided to go public. Purcell was found guilty and sentenced to 13 years for two sex attacks (including another attack six days after Sarah's).

She tells me:

"I can’t help but think Ken Clarke has a patronising view in 'saving the poor women' from the ordeal of a trial.

"Yes the experience is awful but in order to get the maximum punishment possible I would never give sex attackers the convenience of a reduced sentence for pleading guilty. Some crimes may fit that type of arrangement but not sex attacks...

"Unfortunately these things never go away although it's not a daily part of my life anymore... I really don't think Ken Clarke knows the psychological effect of this type of crime, it changes you forever no matter how strong you try to be and no matter how much therapy you have".

The Justice Secretary will try to ignore the newspapers tomorrow. But he ought not to ignore testimony like that.