PAS received a call to our Advice Line last week, from a prisoner to due to be released to an Approved Premises (AP) this Friday, despite the fact that he has Sickle Cell Anaemia, which is one of the highest risk groups for coronavirus infection and full-blown COVID-19.  As the AP would be shared with other residents, the prisoner was scared, worried about exposure to the coronavirus, but had been told by the Parole Board that he had no option but to be released there.

The prisoner’s father had offered to accommodate his son so he could safely self-isolate for the recommended 12 weeks for Sickle Cell and his Offender Supervisor (OS) had been trying to contact the Offender Manager (OM) for three weeks in order to enact this arrangement, but without success.  The prisoner had had three OMs recently and did not know the name of the most recent one.  PAS advised that we’d attempt to contact the OM to make informal representations for the prisoner to be released to his father’s place of residence. 

With the help of a very good London-based Probation Officer, previously known to PAS, we managed to track down the OM and suggested a Home Circumstances Report – over the phone – and prompt change to the prisoner’s licence in light of Public Health England’s Guidance on vulnerable groups and coronavirus.  We then spoke with the OM on the phone again and were assured that a new Home Circumstances Report had been done and that the prisoner would be released to his father’s as we wanted.