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Newsletter Number 4
(06/04/2009)

You are getting this email because you are already aware of, and may be actively involved in, Frank's case. If you want to be removed from the newsletter distribution list, just send an email saying so. Otherwise, you will continue to receive it from time to time with news of any developments. Past newsletters can be viewed from the Newsdesk page on the web site.

Frank news

After a period of stasis, there has been a flurry of activity this month culminating in a move to censor Frank's mail and a physical move for Frank himself from Whitemoor to Long Lartin. It is dificult to understand the significance of these recent developments, though the timing - just after both the Judicial Review, finding in Frank's favour, and comments in the Mandatory Lifer Panel hearing about the unavailability of suitable courses for Frank to take at Whitemoor - seems interesting. We shall just have to wait and see.

• The Judicial Review of recent Category A Reviews

  This was duly held at the Administrative Court on March 24th and found in Frank's favour - see his solicitors' press release for details.

• Parole Board's Third Mandatory Lifer Panel Hearing

  On March 25th, Frank finally received the The Parole Board report of the Mandatory Lifer Panel Oral Hearing held at HMP Whitemoor on March 12th. After the promising conduct of the hearing itself ( read Frank's own report of this here), this report is disappointing. Although not a complete surprise that neither Frank's release nor a move to open conditions is recommended, it is the tone of the report that disappoints. It repeats the mantra that evidence of reduced risk must be achieved through further offending behaviour work and so supports the stance of the Category A Review Team. There is little sign here of the schism between the Parole Board and the Prison Service that was apparent after his last Parole Board hearing and that we had hoped to see continue and perhaps develop.
  Read the Parole Board report itself here.
  Read Frank's own response to the report here.

• Frank's mail censored

  On Thursday March 26th, Frank's normal weekly recorded delivery envelope to me - containing his weekly blog and latest chapter of his prison autobiography - was returned to him with a note explaining that it had been stopped from leaving the prison on the grounds that what was being posted was "part of a novel detailing his experiences within prison". It is not a novel and, anyway, almost 800 pages of it have already been posted out with no intervention or apparent interest from the prison at all. Frank is writing to his solicitor to see what can be done to get this restriction lifted.
  Read Frank's own reaction to this censorship here.

• Frank unexpectedly moved to Long Lartin

  At lunchtime on Monday March 30th, Frank was told that he was being taken somewhere for an overnight stay only. Once in reception and wearing handcuffs, he was told he was going to Long Lartin prison "to do courses". With no writing materials for 3 days, he was only able to get news of the move to me yesterday. Perhaps the intention to provide access to courses is genuine - the CSCP course, for instance, which it has been recommended Frank take, is available at Long Lartin but not at Whitemoor.

Campaign news

Parliamentary questions and questions under the Freedom of Information Act

We are pursuing our attempts to establish whether or not:
1. There is any apparent link between being over tariff and being an appellant or maintaining innocence
2. There is any apparent link between the lack of an oral hearing in a Category 'A' Review and the failure of a prisoner to move out of Category 'A' status as a result of such a review
Having succeeded in getting the figures for those over tariff (see Newsletter Number 3), it is proving difficult to find out how many of these prisoners are also appellants or otherwise maintaining innocence. Here are the results of our most recent efforts:

• In January, David Howarth MP tabled a couple of written Parliamentary questions on this (see Newsletter Number 3) which drew the following responses from the Ministry of Justice:
  
  
  1. David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 15 December 2008, Official Report, column 481W, on prisoners, what assessment he has made of the consequences of the absence of a central record of prisoners maintaining innocence; and if he will make a statement. [248062]
     
     Mr. Hanson: The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) works with prisoners to address their offending behaviour and manage their risk of reoffending 20 Jan 2009 : Column 1340W on the basis that they have been correctly convicted by the courts. As such, a central record of those who maintain their innocence following conviction would serve no useful purpose.
     It is also open to any person who believes that they have been wrongly convicted to challenge the safety of their convictions through either the Court of Appeal or the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
     Current guidance for Prison Service staff in dealing with prisoners who deny guilt is contained in chapter 7 of (Prison Service Order) PSO 4700 which is available at:
     http://pso.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/pso4700/PSO_4700_lifer_manual.doc
  
  
  2. David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what records his Department keeps on the appellant status of prisoners; how many prisoners are currently appealing against their sentence; and how many of them are beyond their original or adjusted tariff. [247745]
     
     Mr. Hanson: The Ministry of Justice does not maintain a central record of the appellant status of prisoners. Therefore, determining how many serving prisoners are currently appealing against their sentence and then of those how many are beyond their original or adjusted tariff would require a manual checking of records, which could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost.


• In February I wrote to the Data and Compliance Unit at NOMS asking for information about records of prisoners who are appellants - see the letter here. They responded by saying that it would be too expensive to conduct the research required to satisfy the request - see the response here. I have asked for an independent review of this response since I can't believe it can be that difficult to find the answer to the first part of the question at least. However, it may also be necessary to reframe the question so that it stands a better chance of being answered.



• In March, David tabled a further written question as follows:
  
  David Howarth: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many recategorisation reviews for Category A prisoners (a) have been undertaken and (b) involved an oral hearing in each year since 2000. [265978]
  25 Mar 2009 : Column 421W
  
  Mr. Hanson: Category A prisoners have their categorisation reviewed once yearly by staff at the prison in which they are held. Every five years their categorisation will be subject to a formal review by the Director of High Security. The exact number of reviews is not centrally recorded. There has only been one oral hearing which was held in 2002.


Although it might strike the outsider as odd that the Prison Service has no central record either of prisoners who are actively involved in the appeal process or of prisoners who are maintaining their innocence, from their point of view it makes a weird kind of sense. The Prison Service is simply not concerned with the notion that some prisoners might actually be innocent, seeing it as a consideration that lies completely outside the scope of the job they are there to perform. However, I think it should be someone's job within the Ministry of Justice to guard against the possibility that prisoners in this situation may be getting a raw deal from the offender management system as it currently stands - and I don't think that's a job that can be done without having these basic facts available.

As for the news that there has only been a single Oral Hearing held as part of a Category A Review since 2000 - this is a revelation indeed! The important point here, I think, being that there is a gap between the intent behind and the execution of the process that produces the series of documents that are considered at a Category A Review - the way it's supposed to be is not necessarily the way it is. Thus at the Mandatory Lifer Panel it emerged that:
• The psychologist had produced her report not as a result of an interview with Frank, but, never having met Frank, from the historical reports of others
• No assessments for courses had been carried out and that the CSCP course, which it has been recommended Frank be assessed for, is not available at Whitemoor
• The representative of the Secretary of State agreed that there had been no increase in risk levels since the last panel but could not explain why risk levels should not have been further reduced after the intervening two years which had seen continued exemplary behaviour from Frank
Such awkward intrusions of reality into the neat pattern superimposed on it by bureaucratic systems simply do not happen at closed Category A Reviews. Perhaps it should be invited in much more often than once in the past eight years or more.

Letters

• In February, I continued my correspondence with the Ministry of Justice / NOMS (as promised in Newsletter Number 2), concerning what I regard as the limitations of current methods used for measuring levels of risk. Here is my reply to the response from the Category A Team of January 12th - and here is the response I received. I shall continue this correspondence.
• In March I had a response from Anne Widdecombe MP to my original letter to all members of the House of Commons. As a one time prisons minister, she has some appreciation of the situation "deniers" can find themselves in and so undertook to write to the head of the Prison Service, Phil Wheatley, on Frank's behalf. Our thanks to her for this. You can read his response to Miss Widdecombe's letter here.
  I note an emerging theme both in this response and in the Parole Board report concerning Frank's "resettlement arrangements", or the lack of them. It is not much wonder that, after 23 years in prison and with no apparent immediate prospect of release, Frank has only a hazy idea of what he would do if freed and relies on the Probation Service to come up with some sort of plan. I'm pretty sure I would say much the same in his position. However, I think this is probably something we should work on.

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