Grant v Ministry of Justice
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM |
| Judgment Date | 19 December 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWHC 3379 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ08X00843 |
| Date | 19 December 2011 |
[2011] EWHC 3379 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Hickinbottom
Case No: HQ08X00843
Hugh Southey QC and Nick Armstrong (instructed by Scott-Moncrieff & Associates LLP) for Desmond Grant
Roger Charles Gleaves acting in person
James Eadie QC and David Pievsky (instructed by The Treasury Solicitor) for the Defendant
Introduction
HMP Albany is a closed prison, for which the Defendant is responsible by virtue of the Prison Act 1952. Most of the prisoners there are category B sex offenders accommodated in single cells in five four-storey wings, each landing accommodating 24 prisoners. There is no in-cell sanitation. Each landing has a recess area, with toilets and washing facilities; and other areas of the prison (such as the workshop area and gym) have their own toilets.
However, there are times when prisoners are confined to their cells. For about 13 hours every evening/night, they are all so confined and they do not have free access to a toilet; although, during this period, each cell door has an electronic unlocking system which, when working properly, enables one prisoner per self-contained landing out of his cell at any time to use the facilities. That electronic system may involve queuing; and, for one reason or another, the system sometimes fails. Prisoners are also locked in their cells at lunchtime and other periods of the day, and may be locked in if they do not work or on the occurrence of certain events (e.g. when a workshop is closed or due to staff shortages). During some of these daytime periods of lock in, a prisoner who wishes to use the toilet is able to contact a prison officer in the wing control room and ask for his cell door to be manually unlocked to enable him to do so. It is in dispute as to how effective that system is. In any event, at other times (e.g. at lunchtime), there is no such facility.
Although there is substantial dispute as to how often this occurs, it is not contentious that, in the regime I have described, a prisoner who wishes to go to the toilet may be locked in his cell and be unable to obtain prompt release to use the facilities in the recess. For that contingency, in each cell there is a plastic bucket with a lid, into which he is able to urinate or defecate. In each recess area there is a sluice into which he can empty the bucket, and where he can clean it, when he next has an opportunity to leave his cell. This known as "slopping out".
The Claims in Brief
Save for a 3 month period in 2007 (when he was at another prison), Desmond Grant was detained in HMP Albany from July 2004 to May 2011, and Roger Gleaves from January 2004 to January 2006. They each claim that, in detaining them in conditions such as pertained at HMP Albany whilst they were there, the Defendant breached their human rights under Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They claim a declaration that their human rights have been breached. Mr Grant also claims damages. Mr Gleaves dropped his claim for damages during the course of the trial.
Article 3, headed "Prohibition of Torture", provides:
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
In this case, the Claimants do not suggest that their treatment in prison was either torture or inhuman; but they do submit that it was "degrading treatment" within Article 3.
Article 8, "Right to Respect for Private and Family Life", provides:
"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
The Claimants contend that the conditions in the prison breached their right to respect for their private life.
The Claimants allege there are five grounds upon which the prison conditions at HMP Albany violated their human rights, as follows, the focus being on the sanitation regime to which I have referred.
Ground 1: In respect of Article 3, any requirement for a prisoner to urinate or defecate into a bucket is humiliating; and is, necessarily and of itself, degrading and a violation of Article 3.
Ground 2: Mr Grant claims that the fact that his cell space was less than the Council of Europe recommendation of 6m 2 was in itself a violation of Article 3.
Ground 3: As an alternative to Ground 1, it is submitted by both Claimants that the requirement to use and thereafter slop out a bucket is degrading for the purposes of Article 3, when considered in the context of all of the conditions at HMP Albany, particularly the allegedly inadequate space, light and ventilation in each cell.
Ground 4: In respect of Article 8, the primary submission is that the requirement to use and slop out a bucket in the circumstances at HMP Albany fails to respect the human dignity of the Claimants, and hence their right to respect for their private life in the terms of Article 8 was breached.
Ground 5: However, even if the Article 8 rights of the Claimants themselves were not directly breached, in the alternative they submit that there was an unacceptable risk that the sanitation arrangements at HMP Albany would breach of their Article 3 and Article 8 rights; and that risk was itself amounted to a breach of their Article 8 rights.
Mr Grant and Mr Gleaves are the only two claimants before me. However, there are approximately 360 other prisoners and ex-prisoners who make similar claims in respect of the conditions at HMP Albany, and others who make similar claims in respect of the other eight prisons in England & Wales that have accommodation without in-cell sanitation. Given the number of claims, on 24 June 2008 Master Miller gave directions for the selection of four lead cases to illustrate the issues involved in the cohort as a whole, and four claims were duly selected including those of Mr Grant and Mr Gleaves. By a further Order of 27 November 2008, one of the selected cases having discontinued, it was replaced. Shortly before trial, one of the four proceeding lead cases was discontinued, and another was struck out for want of prosecution. That left the lead claims of Mr Grant and Mr Gleaves.
At trial, Mr Grant was represented by Hugh Southey QC and Nick Armstrong of Counsel, and the Defendant by James Eadie QC and David Pievsky of Counsel. Mr Gleaves was, by trial, acting in person. In addition to the submissions made at the hearing, further written submissions were made in the case of Mr Grant, concluding with those of Mr Southey and Mr Armstrong dated 13 December 2011.
I heard evidence from both Claimants, and a number of prison officers and others involved in the management of the prison estate generally and of HMP Albany in particular, including those involved in the medical and religious affairs of the prison. I also received a very substantial amount of expert evidence: the Claimants calling Alan Hawes (environmental health), Professor Michael Corcoran (lighting and ventilation), Professor Thomas Markus (purportedly "legal and constitutional issues", but in reality building design and regulation) and Professor Canter (environmental psychology); and the Defendant calling Mel Cairns (environmental health) and Professor David Cooke (clinical psychology).
Convention Rights
The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms ("the Convention") was agreed by the Council of Europe on 4 November 1950, and ratified by the United Kingdom in 1951. It came into force on 3 September 1953. By virtue of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, it is unlawful for a public authority in the United Kingdom to act in a way that is incompatible with a Convention right, defined by reference to various Articles in the Convention and its Protocols; and, by sections 7 and 8 of that Act, victims of such unlawful acts have a right to pursue the relevant public authority in the domestic courts for relief including damages.
The rights given by the Convention were first spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Rights, declared by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Respect for human dignity is a value inherent in the Declaration, the very first recital of which recognises "the inherent dignity… of all members of the human family…". Article 1 declares that: "All human beings are born… equal in dignity…".
That is reflected in the Convention. It is well-recognised that respect for human dignity and freedom is "the very essence of the Convention" ( Pretty v United Kingdom (2002) 35 EHRR 1 at paragraph 65), the Convention translating that value into various specific rights of individuals, particularly Article 2 (which guarantees the right to life), Article 3 (which prohibits torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment), and Article 4 (which prohibits slavery). These rights are particularly precious: they enshrine the most fundamental values of a democratic society, where "the demands of humanity are at their most stringent" ("Human Rights: Judicial...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Patrick Christopher Kelly v The Ministry of Justice
...benefit of considerable amounts of evidence including expert evidence. 8 I dismissed both claims, in a judgment reported as Grant & Gleaves v The Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 3379 (QB). The main analysis and findings of the judgment – which, I reiterate, related to cases in which the cl......
-
Simpson v Governor of Mountjoy Prison
...v Scottish Ministers 2004 Scot (D) 1/7. • Greens & Ors Petitioners 201 Scot (D) 16/5 • Grant and Gleaves v Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 3379 (QB) • Grant & Anr v. Ministry of Justice [2012] EWCA Civ 1447 • Ashton & Ors v. Ministry of Justice [2014] EWHC 1624 (QB). The court has also cons......
-
R and Others v Secretary of State for the Home Department
...x) Furthermore, as I have indicated, "degrading treatment" is defined in terms of its effects on an individual. As I said in Grant and Gleaves v Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 3379 (QB) at [52]: "… the test with regard to minimum severity is an objective test, to be determined on the basi......
-
The Queen (Haidar Ali Hussein) v The Secretary of State for Defence
...it would not be appropriate to employ in the case of Common Article 3. (See, generally, the survey of the case law in Grant and Gleaves v. The Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 3379 (QB), per Hickinbottom J. at paras. 32 et seq.) Furthermore, as previously mentioned, the structure of the ECHR......