Raab's Chickens Roost

So it came to pass, just as we discussed on Saturday, with chickens coming home to roost for Dominic Raab, firstly the High Court declaring his meddling in the affairs of the Parole Board to have no legal basis, and then Amy Rees duly telling staff they are urgently required on the prison front-line. This from the Telegraph:- 

Dominic Raab’s parole board reforms may have set dangerous prisoners free

High Court judges found Lord Chancellor’s rule change to ban MoJ staff’s opinions on releasing high-profile offenders was unlawful

Dangerous prisoners may have been wrongly set free because of a botched attempt by Dominic Raab to reform parole board hearings, the High Court has found. The Lord Chancellor changed the rules in July last year in an effort to ban Ministry of Justice (MoJ) staff from expressing a view on whether offenders should be set free from prison.

Raab wanted the power to offer a “single Secretary of State view” in high-profile cases, without the risk of being contradicted by prison or probation staff in their expert reports and evidence. However, judges in the High Court on Wednesday found the rule change was unlawful and that it may have led to prisoners being released by mistake.

In a highly critical ruling, Lady Justice Macur and Mr Justice Chamberlain found MoJ guidance from July, which was updated in October, estimated it covered more than 12,000 Parole Board hearings.

“Its promulgation may well have resulted in prisoners being released who would not otherwise have been released and in prisoners not being released who would otherwise have been released,” said the two judges. They warned it could also have exposed staff who gave evidence to parole board hearings to contempt of court accusations because of their legal responsibility to give “honest” evidence to the board.

‘Party line’

Raab’s rule said reports on the prospect of prisoner release should “present all relevant information and a factual assessment pertaining to risk”, but “must not present a view or recommendation as to the prisoner’s suitability for release or move to open prison conditions”.

Staff were told not to give their opinions, and were handed a series of example phrases to avoid including: “My assessment of the likely outcome should Mr/Ms X be released is….”

The judges, presiding over a legal challenge by two serving prisoners to the changes in Parole Board procedure, said the reforms would not have worked as intended by Raab, and suggested there had been a misunderstanding of how Parole Board hearings – which are quasi-judicial – actually work.

“As with an expert in court proceedings, the value of any opinion evidence given by an HM Prison and Probation Service staff member in proceedings before the Board depends on its being the witness’s honest and candid professional opinion, expressed in the witness’s own words”, they said.

“Any suggestion that the witness was tailoring their evidence so as to be consistent with their employer’s view would substantially reduce the weight that could be given to it. The suggestion that the Secretary of State can properly insist on a ‘party line’ on the ultimate issue seems to us to emanate from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of these judicial proceedings and the role of professional witnesses in them.”

‘No legal basis’

Finding the rule change was “unlawful”, the judges concluded: “One of the Secretary of State’s principal purposes in making it was to suppress or enable the suppression of relevant opinion evidence which differed from his own view in cases where he expressed one. That purpose was improper.

“The decision to make the rule was an attempt by a party to judicial proceedings to influence to his own advantage the substance of the evidence given by witnesses employed or engaged by him and an impermissible interference with a judicial process. The fact that the attempt failed because the drafters did not achieve his purpose does not save the decision from being unlawful.”

The judges said there was “no legal basis” for an instruction to staff not to answer Parole Board questions about their ultimate view on a case, opening up the possibility that Raab’s directions could have “induced” staff to commit contempt of court. Judges will now hear submissions from parties in the case on what to do next, as a consequence of the unlawfulness found and the possible contempt of court issue.

The Ministry of Justice said there was no evidence the policy led to wrongful releases. A spokesman added: “This is a disappointing result and we are carefully considering our legal options to ensure we are able to press ahead as intended. The Government is committed to ensuring that our parole system functions properly to protect the public and keep dangerous offenders behind bars. Our Parole reforms will be brought forward soon to further put public protection at the heart of the system.”

--oo00oo--

This from the Daily Mail:-

'From one crisis to another': Probation workers will be redeployed from Whitehall to prisons due to staffing crisis

Civil servants at the probation service's HQ are being redeployed to work in prisons because of a staffing crisis. The department's chief has written to senior managers saying they must hand over 5 per cent of their Whitehall workers from today.

Labour claimed the move, which would involve around 90 staff members, could see 'more dangerous offenders left to walk the streets unsupervised'.

It follows a series of reports by the probation watchdog that uncovered sub-standard work in high-profile cases, including the murder of law graduate Zara Aleena.

An email from Amy Rees, director general of HM Prisons and Probation Service, said: 'Given the continued capacity issues across the prison estate and associated staffing pressures, I am writing to request your support in releasing HQ staff to the front line to help with the mitigating actions to address this ongoing issue.'

She added in the message, sent last week: 'I am asking you all to immediately identify 5 per cent of your staff to be released to assist the front line. Staff identified will be directed to temporarily move to priority front-line roles. If these numbers do not meet the demand, this ask could increase to 10 per cent.'

On Monday this week, a follow-up email from Ian Barrow, executive director of the Ministry of Justice's probation workforce programme, said some of those reallocated could work remotely but added: 'There will be an expectation for some staff to be physically deployed to prisons.'

Labour justice spokesman Steve Reed said: 'The public will be rightly worried that with staff being diverted, more dangerous offenders could be left to walk the streets unsupervised. Our probation services are in chaos after 13 years of Conservative mismanagement, with [Justice Secretary] Dominic Raab lurching from one crisis to another. The service has been left with a shortage of probation staff facing unmanageable workloads and rock- bottom morale.'

A probation source said of the redeployment: 'It is absolutely shocking that we had no advance warning that this was coming.' Officers with experience of working in jails are being prioritised for the scheme but it is not a requirement, internal emails said.

Jails in England and Wales are full – with 84,137 inmates at the end of last week. Ministers have already launched an emergency scheme – Operation Safeguard – to allow hundreds of convicts to be kept in police station cells rather than prisons. Yesterday a report from the probation watchdog warned criminals were being freed without adequate oversight because probation teams had too few employees.

Justin Russell, chief inspector of probation, yesterday slammed the service for failing to protect the public from released criminals. He highlighted 'disappointing' findings warning that efforts to assess risks posed by criminals 'fell well short of our expectations'. The report noted the probation service was working with a 30 per cent staff shortfall, which meant officers were overloaded. This led to 'superficial' assessments being made of offenders.

In January, Mr Russell published two damning reports that found crucial failings in how killers Jordan McSweeney and Damian Bendall were handled by probation. Predator McSweeney, described as a 'ticking timebomb', was left free to kill aspiring lawyer Miss Aleena, 35.

Mr Russell said McSweeney should have been recalled to prison six days before the attack in east London and could have been back in his cell by the time of the murder if staff had followed procedures. Another report scrutinised failures in the way Bendall was supervised before he murdered three children and his pregnant partner.

An HM Prison and Probation Service spokesman said: 'We are temporarily moving around 90 qualified staff from desk-based roles to help frontline colleagues in prisons and probation.'

--oo00oo--

This from InsideTime explains some of the background to 'Operation Panic' :- 

Prisoners are to be let out of jail up to six months before their release date, in a new early release scheme which will help to tackle prison overcrowding.

The expansion of the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme will extend the period which prisoners can spend at home, wearing an electronic tag, from 135 days to 180 days at the end of their time in custody. Officials believe the change will free up between 400 and 600 prison places.

It means that someone sentenced to four years for burglary, who at present would serve one year and seven-and-half-months in custody, could in future serve only one year and six months. The reform, which requires a change in the law before it can take effect, was set out in a draft Statutory Instrument laid in Parliament early in February, without publicity. It is scheduled to come into force on June 6.

In a letter to the House of Commons Justice Committee explaining the change, Prisons Minister Damian Hinds said that it was intended to promote rehabilitation. However, an impact assessment published by the Ministry of Justice acknowledges that “an additional benefit may be that by reducing demand for prison places, it will reduce crowding and improve prison conditions for both offenders and staff”.

At the same time, eligibility for the HDC scheme will be restricted so that people convicted of particular offences linked to domestic abuse, such as stalking, harassment and coercive control, are no longer eligible. People convicted of sexual offences, and those serving sentences of longer than four years, were already ineligible. The estimate for the number of prison places which will be freed up takes account of this new curb.

The move comes as jails are overflowing, with the Operation Safeguard scheme to hold remand prisoners in police cells overnight starting to be used in three English regions in February and being extended across England and Wales in March. The Prison Governors’ Association has warned that it will take legal action if the Government tries to squeeze more prisoners into existing jails.

According to the impact assessment, “our best estimate suggests this option will increase the HDC population by up to 450 offenders when it reaches steady state”. It goes on: “The current maximum period that an offender may spend in the community on HDC is 135 days. Extending this period to a maximum of 180 days (six months) will provide further opportunities for offenders to prepare for the transition from custody to supervision under licence in the community, while subject to strict monitoring conditions … It is very unlikely that the impacts forecast by this change – around 400-600 reduction in prison place demand – will lead to the closure of prison cells, wings or entire prisons.”

HDC was introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government in 1999, when the maximum period was set at 60 days. This increased to 90 days in 2002 and to 135 days in 2003. At the time, the Conservatives opposed the policy, calling it evidence that Labour were soft on crime. In 2000, then-Conservative shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe called the policy “disastrous”, telling MPs: “When it was put through Parliament, we described it as wrong and we opposed the early release of prisoners under the scheme.”

Faced with forecasts that the prison population could rise from around 80,000 to 100,000 over five years, then-justice secretary Robert Buckland put forward an identical proposal to increase the HDC limit from 135 days to 180 days in early 2020. However, the plan was withdrawn shortly after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw a fall in prisoner numbers due chiefly to court closures. It has now been revived by Buckland’s successor, Dominic Raab.

The number of prisoners in England and Wales has jumped by 1,700 since the start of January, and is forecast by the Government to carry on rising by 5,000 a year over the next two years. Part of the reason for the increase is a new law introduced by the Government which means that many people serving sentences longer than four years must now spend two-thirds of the time in custody, instead of half.

To be eligible for early release on HDC, prisoners must be serving a sentence of between three months and four years, and they must have a suitable home address where they will be monitored via the tag. Some prisoners without a home to go to may be provided with housing by the Community Accomodation Service. Besides people convicted of sexual offences, other categories of prisoner who are excluded from the scheme include people convicted of terrorism offences and foreign nationals liable for deportation