R (K) v Parole Board
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 05 October 2006 |
| Neutral Citation | [2006] EWHC 2413 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 05 October 2006 |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/6826/2006 |
[2006] EWHC 2413 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Manchester Crown Court
Crown Square
Manchester M3 3FL
The Hon. Mr. Justice Mccombe
Case No: CO/6826/2006
Ian Wise (instructed by the Legal Department of the Howard League for Penal Reform) for the Claimant
Richard Smith (instructed by Treasury Solicitors) for the Defendant
Mr Justice McCombe :
This is an application for permission to apply for judicial review brought on behalf of a 15 year old young man, whom I shall call "K". By order dated 16 August 2006 Mr Kenneth Parker QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of this court, ordered that the application for permission should be heard as soon as possible after 18 September 2006, with the substantive hearing to follow if permission be granted. In my view, the issues raised by the intended application for judicial review are clearly properly arguable. I grant permission to apply accordingly. I have heard argument as on a substantive application.
K challenges a decision of the defendant Board made on 5 June 2006 that he was not suitable for early release.
On 25 October 2005 in the Crown Court at Manchester K was sentenced by His Honour Judge Hammond, under Section 228 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, to an extended sentence of four years detention, consisting of a custodial term of two years and an extended licence period of a further 2 years. The sentence was passed in respect of offences to which he had earlier pleaded guilty, namely three offences of robbery, one offence of possession of an imitation firearm at the time of commission of an offence and one offence of handling stolen goods. He also asked for other robberies and an offence of attempted robbery to be taken into consideration. It appears that the offences were committed by K, in company of a group of other young people; the offences consisted principally of street robberies involving the theft of mobile telephones from members of the public.
As is apparent, K is very young to have committed such offences (in some cases when aged only 13) and to have received a sentence of this nature. His home is in the Fallowfield area of Manchester, where he had been living with his parents and two older sisters. He has an older brother who, it appears, lived with his paternal grandparents. His father has a substantial criminal record and had spent up to 12 years of K's early life in custody. His older brother has also spent periods in custody. The area in which he lived is one of high prevalence of crime.
At the time of sentence K had already spent a substantial period in custody on remand and became eligible for consideration for parole on 30 May 2006. With commendable expedition, the defendant considered K's application, to which I shall return, by 5 June 2006. As I have said, the decision made was to refuse his release.
From the time of his remand into custody in June 2005, K was accommodated in a local authority secure children's home at Kingston-upon-Hull. Evidence indicates that K has had little contact with his family while in custody. The dossier before the defendant on K's parole application has been before me in its entirety. It shows that K was subject to three internal sentence reviews on 3 November and 2 December 2005 and on 28 February 2006. The documents show that in the period of his detention K has made very substantial educational and personal progress, both in his personal life and in his approach to his offending. In November 2005, at the early age of 14, he attained GCSE passes in Maths and English. He has also engaged upon the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme and other constructive development programmes.
On 17 January 2006 K made formal application to be considered for parole at the date when he became eligible for the same. His application form is before the court. The form informed K that if he made an application reports would be obtained from the establishment where he was detained, the police and the probation service or social services for forwarding to the Board. The form continued:
"You will have an opportunity to see those reports and then make written representations in support of your application about 4 months before your PED [parole eligibility date]. About 3 months before your PED, a member of the Parole Board will visit your establishment to discuss your case with you and the Parole Board will then meet to reach a decision…"
It will be seen that there is no reference there to any possibility of inviting the Board to hold an oral hearing. Nothing is said about any assistance that might be available to an applicant in making his representations. The document contains a clear representation that the applicant will be visited by a member of the Board to discuss the case.
Two reports were made available to the Board in this case. The first was from Mr. Roy Walker, the manager of the home at which K was and is accommodated. That report is dated 8 February 2006. The second was from Mr. Rifat Shaheen from the Probation Service in Manchester and is dated 3 April 2006. Mr. Walker's report recognised K's excellent progress in prison which has never been in issue. However, the report noted that K had "raised the problems of how he can return home without being drawn into that (gangland) lifestyle". Mr. Walker expressed the concern that K would not be able to resist the adverse pressures. His conclusion was:
"It is my view that [K] is highly likely to return to being involved in anti-social and offending behaviour at this time, despite the progress he has made at Sutton Place. I do not believe that [K] will be able to resist the pressure to become involved in gang related activities and that he does not have enough support in the community or at home to help him do so. There would need to be a structured and intensive package of support and supervision to help [K] make a successful transition back into the community."
Mr. Shaheen recognised the problem identified by Mr Walker and acknowledged by the Claimant himself. However, he considered that the problem could be managed if K was released. His conclusion was:
"Given the excellent progress made in relation to specific offence focused work and victim empathy, and engagement with MMAGS [Manchester Multi-Agency Gang Strategy] it is my assessment that [K's] risk of harm to the community has reduced and could effectively be managed in the community. Therefore I am supporting [K's] application for Parole."
He also said in the same report that he had discussed the matter with Mr. Walker and with another probation officer, who had been involved with K's case in the past in Manchester, and both were reported as supporting Mr. Shaeheen's recommendation. In a witness statement recently made in these proceedings, Mr. Walker disagrees with this comment: see paragraphs 4 and 5 of that statement. However, that witness statement was not of course before the Board when it considered K's case. On the face of it all relevant reporting officers were supporting K's application.
In his own witness statement K says this about the parole application process:
"My parents did not attend any of the review meetings leading up to my parole. My dad could not attend as he was in custody. Indeed my dad has not visited in all the time that I have been at Sutton Place. My mother was unable to attend as she had to work 8am until 6pm. Social services agreed that they would provide financial assistance so that my family could visit but they did not ever pay any money out.
When I first got sentenced no one knew how long I would have to serve. Eventually LASCH [Local Authority Secure Children's Home] staff told me that I could apply for parole and that if I was unsuccessful on the first occasion I could reapply each month thereafter.
At first I was told that it would be unlikely that I would be successful in applying for parole. As my behaviour and conduct improved, the staff at LASCH and at the Youth Offending Team thought that I deserved a chance and that I had made significant improvements while I had been at the LASCH.
I was told that reports about me had been written by the staff at the LASCH and the YOT. A link worker called Sue showed me the LASCH report and later my link worker Richard went through the whole dossier in about one hour. I wrote my letter to the parole dossier on the evening after I had been through the dossier. I had no assistance in writing the letter and I simply wrote down my thoughts.
In regards to the dossier, I did not understand all of the language used in the reports and I am not sure if I understood all that had been written about me. I did not understand the technical or more complex points in the reports. I thought that it was confusing as one of the reports seemed to say that I was doing really well but yet I shouldn't be let out.
No one talked to me about my right to an oral; hearing. I was told that I should expect a visit from someone at the Parole Board but no one ever came to see me. I was not given any explanation as to why this did not occur."
K availed himself of the opportunity to make representations. He said this:
"Before I came into custody, I was an aggressive person and didn't care very much for the things around me. I didn't think about how others were feeling and what they were going through, I was a self-centred person who thought no-one could stop me, but later on after being in custody, things changed. I looked back on my previous offences and thought how cowardly I behaved, so I wanted to change. I found...
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