Stenning v Secretary of State for the Home Office

Prison authorities owe prisoners a duty to take reasonable care for their safety, including protection from foreseeable violence by other prisoners. Decisions about managing difficult prisoners involve a demanding risk assessment which balances safety, discipline, rehabilitation and eventual release. A court must assess those decisions without hindsight or substituting its own judgment. Negligence requires evidence that the decision was outside the range reasonably open to experienced prison decision-makers. Where the evidence does not establish an immediate or likely risk of violence, a considered decision to maintain a prisoner on normal location, rather than segregate or transfer him, will not ordinarily be negligent.

The claimant, a prisoner at HM Prison Wakefield, was seriously injured and developed post-traumatic stress disorder after another prisoner took him hostage and attacked him with a craft knife. The Newcastle-upon-Tyne County Court, sitting before Mr Recorder Bullock, entered judgment for the claimant in the agreed sum of £12,000.

The Home Office appealed on liability. The central questions were whether the authorities had negligently managed, supervised, transferred or segregated the attacking prisoner, and whether the relevant pleading permitted reliance on wider management decisions made before the incident.

1. Appeal allowed. The claimant failed to prove that the Home Office or its servants and agents had acted negligently. The county court judgment and award of £12,000 were therefore set aside.
2. The court agreed with the principles stated by Neill LJ in Palmer v The Home Office (CAT 25 March 1988). Prison authorities must take reasonable care for the safety of prisoners, including protection from injury caused by another prisoner where negligent supervision or management is proved.
3. Management of a Category A life prisoner requires a careful assessment of competing considerations. These include discipline, protection of staff and prisoners, integration, rehabilitation and preparation for eventual release. Long-term decisions may be made by Home Office officials, while immediate decisions remain with prison staff.
4. The decision to keep the attacking prisoner at Wakefield during the autumn of 1996 was a planned and logical risk-assessment decision. The evidence did not show that he presented an immediate threat to another prisoner. The experienced prison officers were entitled to conclude that continued management on normal location was appropriate. The judge was wrong to find negligence without evidence that the decision overwhelmingly called for different action. Expert evidence concerning the difficult discipline of risk assessment would have been required before making such a finding.
5. The evidence did not establish that the prisoner had asked Mrs Bridgewater to place him in segregation on the evening of the incident. In any event, there was no evidence of changed conduct or an immediate threat requiring segregation. The March 1996 hostage incident added nothing without evidence that the authorities should have relied on it as showing a risk of attack.
6. A court must not apply hindsight or second-guess a decision-maker where the decision was reasonably open to the decision-maker. The relevant management decisions were sound and logical, and the claimant had not proved breach of duty.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): allowed the Home Office’s appeal from the judgment of Mr Recorder Bullock in the Newcastle-upon-Tyne County Court.