Lyefook, R (on the application of) v Parole Board & Anor

A judicial review challenge to a parole decision cannot succeed merely because the claimant disagrees with the Parole Board’s assessment of risk and character. The Board is required to exercise its own judgment, weighing the evidence and the impression formed of the prisoner at the hearing. Allegations that the Board’s evaluative findings amount to defamation or deliberate lies do not establish a public law error without an arguable basis in the evidence. Where the proposed claim has no realistic prospect of success, permission to apply for judicial review should be refused.

The claimant sought permission, on a renewed oral application, to bring judicial review proceedings against the Parole Board and the Secretary of State for Justice. He challenged the Board’s refusal to recommend his release on licence following recall to prison. The challenge alleged, among other matters, that the Board had inaccurately and unfairly described his behaviour and character.

The claim was issued outside the three-month period, but the court declined to determine it on that basis and considered the underlying merits. The central issue was whether the Board’s assessment of risk and its account of the evidence disclosed any arguable public law error.

1. Permission refused. The proposed judicial review had no realistic prospect of success.
2. The Parole Board was established and charged with making difficult decisions which require a balance between fairness and respect for prisoners and risks to the public, staff and fellow inmates. It was entitled, and indeed bound, to make its own assessment rather than simply adopt the views of professional witnesses.
3. The Board was entitled to take into account the claimant’s offending history, the conflicting professional evidence, the evidence given by the claimant, and the impression formed of him at the hearing. Its conclusion that release was too risky at that stage was an evaluative judgment entrusted to the Board.
4. The claimant’s allegation that the panel chair had deliberately lied was not made out even arguably. The challenged passage in the Board’s reasons substantially reflected the chair’s summary of the offender supervisor’s evidence, which the witness had confirmed. A leading question did not, in context, demonstrate that the summary was unfair, distorted or untrue.
5. The complaints, properly analysed, amounted to disagreement with the assessment the Board was required to make. They did not disclose a reviewable error. The court’s decision was not influenced by the anticipated further consideration of the claimant’s case by the Parole Board, although that further consideration was expected relatively soon.

The claimant first sought permission to apply for judicial review on paper, but permission was refused by a single judge. The present court heard his renewed oral application and refused permission.