The claimant prisoner challenged the governor’s refusal to release him on the home detention curfew scheme. Henriques J said: ‘no risk assessment is necessary in cases where a prisoner has committed a presumed unsuitable offence. It is only if there are exceptional circumstances that a risk assessment is carried out to see if the risk is low enough for the prisoner to be released on Home Detention Curfew . . the Governor, in considering exceptional circumstances, is concerned with maintaining public confidence in the scheme. The Secretary of State has decided that Governors should not have regard to the circumstances of the offences. Paragraphs 26 and 33 of the Prison Service Instruction makes this clear . . In particular, para 33 states that exceptional reasons will not include the level of risk the offender poses. Prisoners presumed unsuitable may, indeed, be judged as presenting a low risk of offending or of breach. It is likely that only a very few presumed unsuitable prisoners, nationally, will be released on Home Detention Curfew. Since exceptional reasons will not include the level of risk the offender poses, it seems to me that circumstances will be peculiar to the offender rather than the offence.’
Judges:
Henriques J
Citations:
[2004] EWHC 149 (Admin), [2005] 1 Prison LR 100
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – In Re Findlay, in re Hogben HL 1985
A public authority, and the Prison Service in particular, is free, within the limits of rationality, to decide on any policy as to how to exercise its discretions; it is entitled to change its policy from time to time for the future, and a person . .
Cited by:
Cited – Young, Regina (on The Application of) v Governor of Her Majesty’s Prison Highdown and Another Admn 6-Apr-2011
The claimant complained that he had not been considered for early release on Home Detention Curfew because the policy refused to allow those convicted of knife crimes to be so considered, and: ‘the failure to include other offences in the list of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Prisons
Updated: 14 September 2022; Ref: scu.193700