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Last night, PAS was named the 2011 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Best Not-for-Profit Firm. Naturally, we feel that this success is in itself not the real achievement – rather it is the many years of work and innovation that have put PAS in a position where it was able to compete for such a prestigious award. PAS was supported in its nomination by former service users, as well as Deborah Coles, Director of INQUEST, and Erwin James and Eric Allison from the Guardian.

LALY’s description of PAS’s application during the shortlisting was as follows:

“The Prisoners’ Advice Service is praised for combining technical legal skills with tremendously valuable outreach work, and the organisation has been at the heart of the development of prisoners’ rights in this country. As well as undertaking groundbreaking litigation, it has also served to promote high standards among other lawyers doing the work, such as by providing regular legal updates. Former clients of the service say that it provided them with a lifeline while they were incarcerated”.

A piece about the PAS debate on prisoners' rights on the 3rd May has been published in the Guardian.

The piece was penned by Jon Robins.

Following the successful first Prisoners' Advice Service debate on prisoners' rights, PAS has been the subject of a profile in the Guardian newspaper. Thanks go to Eric Allison for his excellent piece.

One of the speakers at the debate, Jonathan Aitken, was also featured in a Saturday Guardian interview on prisoner voting.

Solicitors' Journal publishes article on PAS's 20th Anniversary

The Solicitors' Journal has published this article, written by PAS's Managing Solicitor Matthew Evans, to celebrate twenty years of legal advice and representation.

The case concerns a vulnerable disabled prisoner (who cannot be named, for legal reasons) at HMP Lewes. He has long standing and significant mental health problems, in particular social phobia characterised by psychological and physical symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks.

The Home Detention Curfew scheme (HDC)

HDC allows prisoners serving short sentences to serve the remainder of their sentence on licence in the community (tag) and with a curfew. They remain prisoners serving a sentence. HDC is a normal part of short term sentenced prisoners’ progression through their sentences. A number of prisoners will be excluded, for reasons relating to their offences but in certain circumstances where risk of re-offending is assessed as extremely small, the prisoner has no previous convictions, and he or she is infirm by nature of disability or age, then this will amount to exceptional circumstances for these purposes and the Governor must direct release.

Where the following three conditions are satisfied, exceptional circumstances will exist to allow release on HDC: Prison Service Instruction 31/2006,

- The likelihood of re-offending on HDC is extremely small.
- The HDC applicant has no previous convictions.
- The applicant is infirm by nature of disability or age or both

The Governor in this case repeatedly refused the Claimant release on HDC. We were contacted by the prisoner’s family and PAS argued that the exceptional circumstances criteria were met in this case. It was accepted by HMP Lewes that he meets the first two.

The case centred on whether he was infirm. He was moved to the vulnerable prisoners’ wing. He spends almost 24 hours a day in his cell. He struggles to leave to get food, and has to build himself up for some time before doing even that. He does not shower for fear of social contact with others. A consultant psychiatrist assessed the Claimant and described his social phobia on 15 December 2010 as being “one of the most intense and debilitating I have seen in my career.” He further said in his report “It is difficult to conceive [of] a more difficult environment for a person suffering from Social Phobia than a prison”.

The Claimant has requested not to have his categorisation reviewed. This is because he is potentially eligible to be transferred to an Open Prison. The Claimant specifically requested not to be de-categorised to Category D as he was afraid of the social contact and change that he would be subjected to an Open Prison.

Judgment today, on 28 February 2011, judgment was read out at the High Court by Mr Justice Burnett. He did not allow the Claimant’s claim for judicial review and he accepted the Respondent’s case. This was that the Claimant was coping in custody, ‘infirm’ is not a medical term and the Governor was entitled to make the decision he made on the basis of all the evidence in front of him that the Claimant was not ‘infirm’ by nature of his disability (Social Phobia). Therefore the Claimant did not meet the third criterion and was not unlawfully refused release on HDC.

PRISONERS ADVICE SERVICE COMMENT: PAS are very disappointed with the judgment in this case. We are considering launching an appeal. This will be difficult, given the short time frames in this case, but this option has not been ruled out.

It is agreed by both sides that the vulnerable prisoner in this case is of very low risk of re-offending and has no previous convictions; the judgment ultimately turned upon a subjective judgment of what ‘infirm’ means.

All enquiries to:

Laura Orger
Solicitor
Prisoners’ Advice Service
PO Box 46199
London, EC1M 4XA
020 7253 3600
Laura@prisonersadvice.org.uk

An article on prisoners' voting rights has appeared in LNB News, incorporating an interview with Matthew Evans, Managing Solicitor of the Prisoners' Advice Service. it can be accessed using the link below: Prisoner Voting Rights: Is Change Inevitable?

Matthew Evans has written an article regarding the coalition government's cuts to t he Legal Aid budget, and on its intentions to reduce the prison population. A PDF version of the article may be accessed here.

As the result of a case settled by the Prisoners' Advice Service, the Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) eligibility criteria for prisoners with consecutive terms of imprisonment in default of payment is now to be based on the over all term of imprisonment (i.e. the period between the date the initial criminal sentence was imposed and the release date of the default term) as opposed to purely on the default term to serve.

This means ROTL eligibility dates will be re-calculated and in practice brought forward in all cases. Further details are available in this piece written by Matthew Evans, PAS's Managing Solicitor. The piece will appear in Inside Time.

Matthew Evans, the Managing Solicitor at the Prisoners' Advice Service,has written an article on the right to vote of UK prisoners, published in the Journal of the Legal Action Group. The article may be found here.