R (oao Potter) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] EWHC Admin 1401

Citation: R (on the application of Potter) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] EWHC Admin 1401

Court: High Court (Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court)

Decision

Potter relates to the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme in prisons, which you can read about here.

Essentially, Potter clarified that the IEP scheme is not to be used to punish prisoners. It is not a form of discipline. Punitive use of the IEP system will render the decision as to a particular prisoner's IEP status vulnerable to challenge, either by written representations from the prisoner's solicitor, or ultimately through judicial review. Similarly, if a prisoner has been adhering to criteria relating to a certain privilege, taking that privilege away may constitute grounds for judicial review on the basis that the prisoner had a legitimate exception.

R (on the application of Shutt & Tetley) v Secretary of State for Justice [2012] EWHC 851 (Admin)

Citation: R (on the application of Shutt & Tetley) v Secretary of State for Justice [2012] EWHC 851 (judgment can be found here:

http://www.prisons.org.uk/sandt.pdf)

Court: Administrative Court (High Court, Queen's Bench Division).

Decision

It was held in R (on the application of Shutt & Tetley) v Secretary of State for Justice [2012] EWHC 851 that a local Incentives and Earned Privileges Policy ("IEP") policy which precluded individuals who maintained their innocence from ever achieving "Enhanced" level on the scheme was unlawful.

This means that IEP policies must be drafted in such a way that prisoners who deny their offending should not automatically be excluded from gaining Enhanced status by virtue of their denial. In other words, a blanket ban is unlawful.

It should be noted however that in Shutt & Tetley, no injustice was found to these particular claimants themselves. This was for the following reasons:

1. The claimants were later assessed for the Sex Offender Treatment Programme and found suitable but not ready for the course, because of their denial and;
2. The claimants' OASys reports indicated that nothing more pressing needed to be done.