Alan Matthew Daulby, R (on the application of) v The Parole Board for England and Wales

Procedural fairness does not require an oral Parole Board hearing merely because it might be preferable, or because release might be unlikely. The question is whether fairness, assessed in the light of the facts and the importance of what is at stake, required an oral hearing.

The Board may take account of the prisoner’s risk, the statutory release test, the information already available, and whether an oral hearing could materially advance the assessment of risk or risk management. A previous oral hearing may provide a proper basis for treating issues already determined as closed. In a determinate-sentence case, there is no automatic entitlement or general predisposition to an oral hearing.

The claimant, a determinate-sentence prisoner transferred from Spain, challenged the Parole Board’s refusal to direct an oral hearing during his 2024 annual review.

The Board had previously held an oral hearing after his recall in 2022 and had found that significant risk-reduction work remained outstanding. A paper review in April 2023 and a further paper decision in May 2024 refused release. On 15 June 2024, a duty member refused the claimant’s request for an oral hearing, relying on the existing evidence, the previous findings, and the absence of material progress.

The sole issue was whether the procedure was unfair under the principles in [2013] UKSC 61.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimant had not established that procedural fairness required an oral hearing.
2. The governing question was whether fairness required an oral hearing in the light of the facts and the importance of what was at stake. The Board had to consider whether an oral hearing could assist its independent assessment of risk or risk management, or enable the prisoner effectively to present his case or test relevant views. The likelihood of release was not itself a permissible reason for refusing a hearing.
3. There was no automatic requirement for an oral hearing under the applicable Parole Board Rules. The absence of an oral-hearing predisposition in a determinate-sentence case was relevant to the fairness assessment. Article 5(4) of the Convention did not apply to this determinate-sentence case.
4. The claimant bore the burden of showing that the procedure was unfair, rather than merely that another procedure would have been preferable. The Board was entitled to consider the detailed written representations and voluminous dossier, the claimant’s limited recent engagement with risk-reduction work, and the continuing need to address core risk factors.
5. The merits of the licence revocation had already been considered at the 2022 oral hearing. The claimant could not reopen and reargue those matters in the later review, including by presenting them as issues requiring an oral hearing for risk assessment.
6. The suggestion that the Board had improperly focused on the outcome was speculative. The absence of an updated psychologist’s report did not make an oral hearing necessary, since further assessment was premature in view of the claimant’s limited engagement. Complaints about the availability of offending-behaviour work and unparticularised alleged dossier errors did not establish procedural unfairness.
7. The May 2024 reference to there having been no significant change was not a misdirection. It was understood in context as referring to the absence of completed intervention addressing the outstanding core risk factors. In any event, that decision was not itself the decision under challenge.

The procedure was therefore fair and consistent with [2013] UKSC 61. The claim was dismissed.

This was a first-instance judicial review claim. No prior appellate decision in the same litigation was stated.