The appellant was serving a mandatory life sentence for murder. She was being considered for release from custody to ‘Approved Premises’. There were however more such centres for men and the provision for women was unplanned. The results, she said was dicriminatory in that women would be likely to be housed further away than men. She now appealed against rejection of her claim.
Held: The appeal failed. The provision was not discriminatory. The system did disadvantage women, but this was as an unintended result, not one of discrimination. Exactly the same rules were being applied for men and women, but it was the difference in numbers which created this result.
Lord Dyson MR, Elias Sharp LJJ
[2015] EWCA Civ 328, [2015] WLR(D) 157
Bailii, WLRD
Equality Act 2010 13 19
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Griffiths v Secretary of State for Justice Admn 19-Dec-2013
The claimants challenge what is said to be the continuing failure of the Secretary of State for Justice (‘the Secretary of State’) to make adequate provision for so called approved premises to accommodate women released from prison on licence. The . .
Cited by:
Cited – Coll, Regina (on The Application of) v Secretary of State for Justice SC 24-May-2017
The appellant female prisoner asserted that the much smaller number of probation and bail hostels provided for women prisoners when released on licence was discriminatory in leaving greater numbers of women far removed from their families.
Prisons, Discrimination
Updated: 11 November 2021; Ref: scu.544993