Stellato v Ministry of Justice [High Court QBD]
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Cranston J |
| Judgment Date | 07 April 2009 |
| Date | 07 April 2009 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CC/2008/PTA/0806 |
Neutral Citation: [2009] EWHC 1719 (QB)
High Court QBD
Judge: Cranston J
CC/2008/PTA/0806
Appearances: S Kovats for the Ministry of Justice; Mr Stellato in person.
Issues: Whether the calculation of an award for false imprisonment was correct; whether detention for breach of bail pending appeal was lawful; the impact of a further conviction and sentence of imprisonment after the period of unlawful detention.
Facts: In December 1998, S was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment; in December 2005, he was released at the three-quarter point in accordance with the early release provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, but he was recalled almost immediately for breach of licence conditions. In judicial review proceedings, he contended that as a matter of law he should have been released unconditionally and so should not have been recalled: his application was dismissed by the High Court in March 2006, but the Court of Appeal allowed his appeal in December 2006 and declared that his detention was unlawful; the House of Lords granted leave to appeal to the Secretary of State but dismissed the appeal in February 2007. S had been released on conditional bail after the decision of the Court of Appeal, the effect of which was stayed until the further appeal was heard, but he declined to abide by the conditions and he was arrested for breach of bail and bail was then revoked. In September 2007, he was sentenced to imprisonment for a further offence of burglary.
S took proceedings for false imprisonment and breach of Art 5 ECHR for the period from the revocation of his licence and consequent detention (6 January 2006) to his release after the decision of the House of Lords (28 February 2007), save for his few days on bail after the decision of the Court of Appeal. In November 2008, the trial judge awarded £50,000 for non-pecuniary damage, taking account of S's poor record (numerous previous convictions, and a subsequent sentence of imprisonment in September 2007), his constructive use of time in prison, his sense of grievance at what had happened, and slight evidence of depression; he added £5,000 for the loss of a chance to obtain employment, and interest and costs. The Ministry of Justice counterclaimed some £35,000 in relation to orders it had obtained against S. After various costs orders were made, the outcome was that some £15,000 was owing to S.
On appeal, the Ministry contended that (i) the award for non-pecuniary damage was too high; it withdrew a concession made that the full period of detention should be taken into account and argued that the period of detention after the revocation of bail should not be counted; and that account should be taken of the power under s116 Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 to order a prisoner to serve the remaining part of a sentence when a further offence was committed before sentence expiry (which was 275 days, being the time remaining on the 1998 sentence when he committed the burglary leading to the further sentence in September 2007); (ii) the award for loss of opportunity to obtain employment was in error; and (iii) the interest payable on part of the counterclaim had been at the wrong rate.
1. This case concerns the calculation of damages for those unlawfully detained in prison. The respondent to this appeal, Mr Stellato, was awarded some £55,000 at the Oxford County Court. Those were damages for false imprisonment and breach of his rights under Art 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The defendant, the Ministry of Justice, appeals to this court on the basis that the learned judge erred in his assessment of the damages, firstly because of his approach to the relevance of Mr Stellato's unlawful behaviour; and secondly, in awarding Mr Stellato anything for loss of opportunity to obtain employment. Moreover, the Ministry of Justice contends that the judge was wrong to hold that he had a discretion to award the defendant less than the judgment rate of interest on costs orders which the Ministry of Justice had obtained against Mr Stellato and which had been set off against the award of £55,000.
2. In brief, Mr Stellato's claim arose out of a dispute on a point of law. On 17 December 1998 Mr Stellato was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by the Crown Court at Northampton. He had a long history of offending. He had been born in 1971 and, as of the date of his last conviction in April 2008, to which I will come, he had some 49 fraud and related offences, 82 theft and related offences and a number of other offences, some involving offences against the person, some sexual offences, some property offences, and some public order offences and offences relating to the police. In the event, he was released at the three-quarter point of his 1998 sentence. That was on 27 December 2005, but because 23 December 2005 was the last working day before Christmas he was released on that day.
3. By the time of his release, Mr Stellato had instituted judicial review proceedings. Permission had been granted by Ouseley J on 19 December 2005. Mr Stellato was seeking a declaration that his release at the three-quarter point should be unconditional release and not release on licence. In fact, the release on 23 December 2005 was release on licence. Mr Stellato contended that unconditional release was demanded as a result of s33(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The matter came before the Divisional Court on 31 March 2006, and Mr Stellato's claim was dismissed ([2007] Prison LR 14).
4. Some 9 months later, on 1 December 2006, the Court of Appeal heard Mr Stellato's appeal and allowed it. The court declared that he should have been unconditionally released on 23 December 2005 as a result of s33(3) and that consequently his subsequent detention, which I explain in a moment, was unlawful. The Court of Appeal stayed its order until midday on 21 December 2006 and granted Mr Stellato conditional bail ([2007] Prison LR 20, [2007] 1 WLR 608). The House of Lords gave leave to appeal on 12 December 2006 and ordered:
‘… that there be a stay of para 2 of the Court of Appeal order of 1 December 2006 and implementation thereof continued until withdrawn or determination of the appeal or further order.”
Subsequently, the House of Lords heard the appeal. On 28 February 2007 it held that Mr Stellato's argument had been correct ([2007] Prison LR 29, [2007] 2 AC 70). At that point, Mr Stellato was released unconditionally.
5. What had happened in the meanwhile was that Mr Stellato had refused to comply with his licence conditions when he had been released on licence in late 2005. He did that because he said that in law he should have been released unconditionally. The Home Secretary purported to revoke his licence on 28 December 2005 because of this and returned him to prison on 6 January 2006. As I indicated, when the claimant was successful in the Court of Appeal, it stayed its order and granted Mr Stellato bail. That was in December 2006. Mr Stellato then refused to comply with his bail conditions because he said that he could not be on bail if he was not on licence. On 6 December 2006 Hughes LJ issued a warrant for his arrest for breach of bail conditions. He was arrested on 7 December and returned to prison. His bail was revoked by Hughes LJ on 8 December 2006. Once the House of Lords announced its decision on 28 February 2007 he was released unconditionally, as I have said.
6. To complete the chronology, some time in the later part of September 2007 Mr Stellato committed burglary. On 17 April 2008 he was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment by the Crown Court at Northampton. The 119 days which he had spent on remand were taken into account in calculating his sentence. About 10 weeks later the sentence expiry date for his 1998 conviction was reached, on 26 June 2008.
7. The present proceedings were issued on 31 January 2006. Initially they were taken against the Home Office, but in May 2007 the Ministry of Justice...
To continue reading
Request your trial