Walker v Secretary of State for Justice

A prisoner’s allocation must be assessed separately from security categorisation. In deciding allocation, the Secretary of State must consider the prisoner’s accommodation, medical and psychiatric needs, treatment requirements, and the location of likely visitors, alongside the prisoner’s security category. A risk assessment may properly consider both static and dynamic risk factors. Physical disability does not necessarily make escape impossible, particularly where motivation, resources, manipulation and opportunities arising from medical appointments are relevant. The court will not substitute its own view for an expert-based assessment where the decision-maker has taken relevant matters into account and reached a conclusion open to it.

The claimant, a life prisoner reclassified from Category A to Category B, sought judicial review of his continued placement at HMP Wakefield, a high-security establishment. He alleged that the allocation and risk-assessment decisions failed to take sufficient account of his age, serious physical disabilities and inability to escape, and considered only static risk. He also challenged the failure to move him out of the high-security estate.

Claims under articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights were not argued at this hearing and were to be dealt with separately. The court therefore determined the agreed public-law issues concerning allocation, categorisation-related risk assessment and escape risk.

1. The claim failed on the issues determined. The claimant’s placement at HMP Wakefield was not unreasonable or otherwise unlawful by reason of the three specified matters, and the failure to move him out of the high-security estate was not unlawful on those grounds.
2. Under Prison Act 1952, section 12, a prisoner may lawfully be confined in any prison and may be moved as directed by the Secretary of State. Section 47(1) authorises rules governing the classification, treatment and control of prisoners.
3. The Prison Rules 1999 require regard to training and treatment, outside contacts, necessary restrictions, and classification by reference to age, temperament and record. The applicable Prison Service Order distinguished security categorisation from allocation. Categorisation had to address security and control, while allocation had to consider accommodation, medical and psychiatric needs, behavioural programmes, visitors and other relevant needs.
4. The claimant’s disabilities and age had been considered at each material stage. The evidence included assessments by medical and psychological professionals, which addressed the effect of his conditions on reoffending and risk. The weight to be given to those matters was for the decision-maker.
5. The assessments considered both static and dynamic risk. They addressed criminal history and other unchanging features, as well as current attitudes, emotional control, behaviour, interpersonal functioning and treatment needs. The criticism that the assessment was merely theoretical was therefore rejected.
6. The assertion that physical disability made escape impossible did not determine the issue. The decision-maker was entitled to consider motivation, resources, medical appointments outside prison, the possibility of manipulation and the expertise of staff at HMP Wakefield. The conclusion that an escape risk remained was open to the Secretary of State.
7. The court left unresolved the wider factual dispute about the suitability of HMP Wakefield and the outstanding articles 3 and 8 claims. Directions were to follow for those remaining issues.

This was a first-instance judicial review hearing. The judgment records earlier procedural steps, including adjournments of the permission application, amendments to the grounds, and directions for the remaining Convention claims. No lower-court judgment or appeal decision is stated.