swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Prisons - From: 1991 To: 1991
This page lists 2 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Leech v Secretary of State for Scotland 1991 SLT 910
1991
SCS
Prisons
The rule which allowed the prisons to read correspondence between an inmate and his legal adviser if legal proceedings had not yet been commenced was upheld as valid.
Prison (Scotland) Rules 1952 (SI 1952/565) 74(4)
1 Citers
Regina v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison, Ex parte Hague, Weldon v Home Office [1992] 1 AC 58; Times, 25 July 1991; [1991] 3 All ER 733; [1990] UKHL 8; [1991] 3 WLR 340; [1992] COD 69; (1993) 5 Admin LR 425; [1991] UKHL 13; [1991] BCC 713; 1991 SLT 523; 1991 SC (HL) 22
24 Jul 1991
HL
Lord Bridge of Harwich, Lord Ackner, Lord Goff of Chieveley, Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle, Lord Lowry
Prisons, Torts - Other
The prisoner challenged the decision to place him in segregation under Prison Rule 43. Under rule 43(1) the initial power to segregate was given to "the governor". The case arose from the fact that the governor of one prison had purported to authorise the segregation of a prisoner on his arrival at another prison to which he was being transferred, as required by an instruction issued by the Home Office. The prisoner's continued segregation at his new prison, after the initial period of segregation expired, was then automatically authorised by the regional director of prisons on behalf of the Secretary of State, in accordance with the same instruction. Held: The House characterised the Prison Rules as regulatory in character, to the extent that they dealt with the management, treatment and control of prisoners.
A prisoner "is lawfully committed to a prison and while there is subject to the Prison Act 1953 and the Prison Rules 1954. His whole life is regulated by the regime. He has no freedom to do what he wants, when he wants. His liberty to do anything is governed by the prison regime. Placing Weldon in a strip cell and segregating Hague altered the conditions under which they were detained but did not deprive them of any liberty which they had not already lost when initially confined." A person who has been deprived of his liberty in pursuance of a lawful power to detain cannot through the medium of the tort of false imprisonment complain about the conditions in which he is detained, at least by those who are lawfully detaining him, though unauthorised persons, such as other prisoners, might indeed be guilty of false imprisonment if they confined another prisoner within the prison. Whether a statutory duty gives rise to a private cause of action is a question of construction of the statute. When justifying a detention, the issue of detention must be considered and determined before one can turn to the issue of justification.
As to an allegation of novus actus interveniens, Lord Bingham emphasised that the duty was a duty to take reasonable care and not to guarantee that a fatality did not occur: "Since an act of self-destruction by the deceased was the very risk against which the defendant was bound in law to take reasonable precautions, I cannot see how that act can be regarded as a novus actus. So to hold would be to deprive the duty of meaningful content. This was, after all, the very thing against which the defendant was duty- bound to take precautions. It can make no difference that the deceased was mentally "normal" (assuming he was), since it is not suggested that the defendant's duty was owed only to the abnormal. The suicide of the deceased cannot in my view be regarded as breaking the chain of causation." and "If the defendant owed the deceased a duty of care despite the fact that the deceased was of sound mind, then it again seems to me to empty that duty of meaningful content if any claim based on breach of the duty is inevitably defeated by a defence of volenti."
Lord Bridge of Harwich said that the tort of false imprisonment has two ingredients: the fact of imprisonment and the absence of lawful authority to justify it.
Prison Act 1953 12 13 - Prison Rules 1964 43
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Bailii ] - [ Bailii ]