Thirty-five years ago, but it still feels like yesterday I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had been exactly where I meant to be. I was in a case at the Old Bailey. There was yet another bomb warning. The prisoners were sent down to their cells, the rest of us turned out of the building. Most people thought it was just another hoax. We were soon disabused. There was a huge bang, thick brown acrid smoke and flying debris, followed by a hail storm of glass shards from the windows of all the office blocks around.
One person later died; quite a number received serious injuries; but I and many others were incredibly lucky given how close we had been and escaped with minor cuts - and shock. It was the most horrifying moment of my life. I won't ever forget it, nor do I want to. And at least it has given me first hand experience of the random horrible nature of such acts which are designed and do terrify a much wider population than the immediate victims - which is why we accurately describe such criminal behaviour as terrorism.
Such was the public outrage at this and many worse bombings by the Provisional IRA that in the event, under pressure to get convictions, corners were sometimes cut, and wholly unacceptable methods were used to secure confessions. One result was some dreadful miscarriages of justice - like the "Guildford Four" and the "Birmingham Six", where the convictions were later overturned, large compensation paid out, and great damage was done to public confidence in our criminal justice system.
Many reforms have since been put in place to reduce to virtually zero the risk of such abuses ever happening again - including a revolution in how the police obtain evidence and question suspects - from much greater use of robust forensic techniques through to the tape recording of interviews. But that experience in the seventies, and the instinctive concern of British people for justice and civil liberties has made us all very wary of extending police powers unless the case for doing so is overwhelming.
Next week, however, the Commons has to make a decision of this nature, on "42 days". At present, terrorist suspects can be detained without charge to a maximum of 28 days, but only if a senior and experienced judge agrees to an extension at seven-day intervals.
The full 28 period has only been needed six times, and the police and the CPS have been increasingly successful in securing convictions, with more and more defendants pleading guilty. So far in 2008 there have been 28 people convicted, 11 of who pleaded guilty. In 2007, 37 individuals were convicted, 21 of whom pleaded guilty - so about half of all plead guilty. The threat from terrorism from the Provisional IRA was bad enough; but that from Al Qaeda inspired terrorists is much much worse. Given what we and the security agencies know, it is far from idle to believe that there is a prospect of atrocities which are even more ruthless and complex in scale than we have seen so far. Some of those which have mercifully been detected before the event come into that category. So Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has judged, and I am clear that she is right, that the police and prosecutors need reserve powers available, with the possibility of detaining a suspect for 42 rather than 28 days before charge.
But really strong safeguards are being built in. The power could only arise if there were a "grave and exceptional threat which threatens or causes the serious loss of life or property"; the police chief and Director of Public Prosecutions would have to seek the power; even if triggered it would last initially for only thirty days and have to be approved by Parliament within seven days. And all that is just so the power could be used. In any individual case a senior judge would have to be satisfied that continued detention beyond 28 days really was justified; and there would be independent retrospective scrutiny of all the decisions made by a senior and independent lawyer, Lord Carlile.
Terrorism is indiscriminate. It takes out people of all faiths - Christian, Hindu, Jew, Sikh, Muslim - or of no faith. But I hope that those who have understandable anxieties about the impact of this reserve power on community relations will examine the proposals in detail. [I have every faith that with intense scrutiny and tight procedures the police will do everything possible to get their intelligence right before arrests are made.] I hope that as those who concerned look further at this will conclude that the safeguards which have been put in place really are very strong indeed. They will lead to neither injustice nor unfairness; but they should help to keep our country safer from a threat which affects us all.
