Umar Jones, R (on the application of) v The Parole Board for England and Wales

A decision to set aside a final direction for release under Parole Board Rules 2019, r. 28A, requires satisfaction of both the interests-of-justice requirement and the specified statutory condition. Where the application relies on information unavailable to the original panel, the decision-maker must decide whether release would not have been directed if that information had been available. That requires sufficient consideration of the information’s nature, relevance, reliability and cogency in the context of the original evidence. A decision-maker cannot defer assessment of disputed reliability to a later rehearing. The extent of the necessary inquiry depends on the case, but obtaining readily available reliability ratings may be required.

The claimant challenged the Parole Board’s decision of 4 August 2025 to set aside its earlier direction for his release. The set-aside decision relied on seven security-intelligence gists, some concerning events before the original hearing and some disclosed afterwards.

The claimant argued that the judicial member applied too low a threshold, failed to make necessary inquiries into the reliability and substance of the intelligence, and failed to consider relevant matters when assessing the interests of justice. The Secretary of State ultimately adopted a neutral position and decided not to pursue the set-aside application. The central issues were the proper construction and application of r. 28A of the Parole Board Rules 2019.

1. Ground 1 succeeded. Under r. 28A(3) of the Parole Board Rules 2019, both the interests-of-justice requirement and one of the conditions in r. 28A(4) must be satisfied. The relevant condition, r. 28A(4)(b)(i), asks whether the direction for release would not have been given if information unavailable to the original panel had been available.
2. The phrase is a past conditional and is not qualified by probability or likelihood. The decision-maker must consider the new information in the context of the evidence before the original panel. That requires sufficient consideration of its nature, relevance, reliability and cogency. What is sufficient depends on the facts.
3. The judicial member stated the correct test but did not apply it in substance. The claimant had denied the allegations and had placed their reliability directly in issue. The judicial member effectively left reliability, credibility and accuracy for the later hearing. That was insufficient and rendered the decision unlawful.
4. If necessary, ground 2 would also have succeeded. The Parole Board’s Tameside duty required reasonable and proportionate inquiry. In this case, the judicial member should have sought the reliability ratings attached to the intelligence. That inquiry was neither onerous nor disproportionate and would have disclosed that most gists had been given a low reliability rating.
5. Ground 3 would have failed. Finality of judicial decisions was not necessarily a weighty factor under r. 28A(3)(a), and the relevant question under r. 28A(4)(b)(i) concerned information unavailable to the Parole Board, not merely unavailable to the Secretary of State. The failure to consider that six gists were available to the Secretary of State did not independently vitiate the decision.
6. The decision of 4 August 2025 was quashed. Because the Secretary of State no longer pursued the set-aside application, no reconsideration order was required. The original direction for release therefore stood.

First-instance judicial review. The claim challenged the Parole Board’s decision of 4 August 2025 to set aside its direction for release. The High Court quashed that decision.