Overmatter
| DOI | 10.1177/026455050104800426 |
| Published date | 01 December 2001 |
| Date | 01 December 2001 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
1
A mandatory life sentence prisoner
convicted of murder of a young woman in
a Newcastle-upon-Tyne night-club was
released on licence, including additional
conditions recommended by the Parole
Board, one of which specified that he
should not enter the metropolitan areas of
Newcastle and North Tyneside without his
supervising officer’s prior approval,
though he had grown up in Newcastle and
his parents still lived there. The victim’s
family remained living and working in
Newcastle and had requested that he
should not be permitted to return, to
minimise the possibility of chance
encounter. He had hoped to live with his
parents and he also wanted to take up
employment with his brother-in-law in the
Newcastle area. He had had to reside
instead on release with relatives in
Co. Durham where employment prospects
were poorer and, as his parents were in
poor health and could not travel far,
meetings with them outside the exclusion
area was proving costly and time-
consuming. He also had close friends in
Newcastle and wanted to watch Newcastle
FC home matches. He sought judicial
review of the exclusion condition, arguing
that it constituted a disproportionate
interference with his right to respect for
his private and family life under ECHR
Article 8.
Confirming that Article 8(1) applies
in such circumstances, the High Court
recognised that the Home Secretary should
give weight to the concerns and anxieties
of the victim’s family and that their
sensibilities fall within the “rights and
freedoms of others” (under Article 8(2))
that may justify an infringement of the
rights conferred by 8(1). The judge noted,
however, that the specified wide exclusion
zone had been adopted from a Victim
Liaison Report but had not received
detailed or sufficient consideration from
the victim’s family’s point of view – for
example, their street was partly outside the
zone and the victim’s mother’s workplace
lay just outside the zone – or the
applicant’s circumstances. The condition
was unreasonable and disproportionate to
the interests sought to be protected by it.
However, in the course of proceedings the
Home Office had proposed a revised
exclusion area (consisting of two zones,
each regulated by specific sub-rules),
determined by precise geographical
description rather than by broad
administrative boundaries, and having
regard to the complete area in which the
victim’s parents lived and regularly
accessed. This revision allowed the
applicant to work and to travel to work
within the Newcastle area, and to visit his
family, using private transport and main
roads. This compromise proposal fairly
and reasonably reflected the competing
interests involved and their respective
values. Though the applicant would not
have complete freedom to find work and
there remained some possibility of the
victim’s family experiencing a chance
encounter with their daughter’s killer, the
revision met the requirements of
proportionality. The lack of any detail
from the applicant regarding his “close
friends” precluded that factor being given
any real weight and his inability to watch
his local football team, while regrettable,
was of insufficient weight to count
against the proposal. The revised terms of
the licence condition were thus upheld.
R (on the application of CRAVEN) v H OME
SECRETARY (2001, unreported).
Note: This important and interesting
judgement has real implications for staff
involved in victim liaison and in early
release licence oversight, indicating the
importance of careful and detailed
consideration of exclusion conditions, to
accommodate the competing interests at
stake. It is no longer good enough to
propose wide areas of blanket exclusion
where offenders have valid reasons, based
on family ties, relationships or
Overmatter
Licence Exclusion
Conditions
In Court-p310-317 22/11/01 9:19 am Page 9
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