House of Lords
| Date | 01 February 1992 |
| Published date | 01 February 1992 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201839205600104 |
| Subject Matter | House of Lords |
HOUSE
OF
LORDS
CONVICfED
PRISONER'S RIGHTS TO SUE
RVDeputy Governor
of
Parkhurst, ex p Hague
A category A prisoner serving a sentence of 15 years' imprisonment,
having committed an offence against the Prison Rules and being aggressive
and unco-operative, was segregated and then moved to another prison,
where his segregation continued. On an application to the High Court
(and on appeal to the Court of Appeal), it was submitted that he had a
right to be heard before he was segregated, that he could not be segregated
in the second prison except after a reasoned decision of the Home Secretary
and that he was entitled to damages for false imprisonment in view of his
treatment. The Court of Appeal held that he was not entitled to a hearing
before segregation and that, as a convicted prisoner, he was not entitled
to damages for false imprisonmentunlessdetained in intolerable conditions;
but the court held that his complaint of being detained in segregation as a
matter of routine in the second prison was justified in the absence of a
decision by the Secretary of State: see R v Deputy Governor
of
Parkhurst,
ex p Hague
[1990]
3 WLR 1210; 56 JCL 186.
On appeal to the House of
Lords-see
[1991]
3 WLR
3~his
case was
taken in conjunction with an appeal in Weldon v Woods
[1990]
3 WLR
465, where a prisoner who alleged that he had wrongly been put in a strip-
cell, in breach of the Prison Rules, claimed damages from the Home
Secretary for assault and battery and false imprisonment. The application
by the Home Secretary to have struck out the claim in respect of false
imprisonment was dismissed by the Registrar, the assistant recorder and
the Court of Appeal. The Home Secretary did not query the jurisdiction
of the courts to question the correctness of disciplinary awards made by
boards of visitors or prison governors. Indeed, earlier attempts to do so in
the two cases respectively had already been pronounced upon by the courts
and stated to be erroneous. Nor did the Home Officequestion the decision
of the Court of Appeal that the segregation of the prisoner in this case
had been in breach of r 43 of the Prison Rules and was therefore unlawful.
Indeed, the Home Office had issued a new circular prescribing new
procedures in view of that decision. The two appeals therefore raised a
different
question-whether
the convicted prisoner had been treated in a
manner which was in breach of the rules and, if so, whether such a prisoner
has a right in any, and what, circumstances to sue the governor or the
Home Secretary for breach of statutory duty or for false imprisonment.
The claim for damages for breach of statutory duty could not have
succeeded in any of the lower courts, since the Court of Appeal had
decided in Becker v Home Office
[1972]
2 QB 407 that a breach of the
Prison Rules does not per se give rise to a cause of action. That decision
did not initiate the principle. In Arbon vAnderson
[1943]
KB 252, Goddard
U expressed the 'clear' opinion that neither the Prison Act nor the Rules
could be said to have been intended to confer any right of action on an
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