Oakley: Application for Reconsideration by Secretary of State

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  Oakley, Application for Reconsideration by the Secretary of State for Justice [2026] PBRA 60 (17 March 2026)

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[2026] PBRA 60

Application for Reconsideration by the Secretary of State for Justice

in the case of Oakley

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Application

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1. This is an application by the Secretary of State for Justice (the Applicant) for reconsideration of a decision of a Panel of the Parole Board dated 02 April 2025 and issued on 27 January 2026 following an oral hearing, to direct the release of Oakley (the Respondent).

2. Rule 28(1) of the Parole Board Rules 2019 (as amended by the Parole Board (Amendment) Rules 2025) (the Parole Board Rules) provides that applications for reconsideration may be made in eligible cases (as set out in rule 28(2)) either on the basis (a) that the decision contains an error of law, (b) that it is irrational and/or (c) that it is procedurally unfair. This is an eligible case, and the application was made in time.

3. I have considered the application on the papers. These are:

? The decision of the Panel;

? The application for reconsideration; and

? The dossier now comprising 956 numbered pages.

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Request for Reconsideration

1. The application for reconsideration is dated 17 February 2026. The sole ground for seeking a reconsideration is that the decision of the Panel was irrational because t he Panel failed to place sufficient weight on the Respondent's continued use of verbal aggression throughout his custodial sentence when directing release.

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Background

1. On 18 December 2009, at the age of 24 and upon his guilty plea, the Respondent was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter. The tariff (following appeal) was set at 12 years less time spent on remand in custody and the tariff expiry date was in February 2021.

2. The Panel noted that the Respondent's history of convictions, cautions, and allegations revealed a pattern of aggressive and violent offending potentially linked to poor emotional management and consequential thinking.

3. The Respondent was in a relationship with the victim for around 10 months, but she ended this due to his controlling and increasingly violent behaviour. He refused to accept that the relationship was over and pursued her in an attempt to persuade her to reconcile.

4. After an occasion when he attended her place of work, the victim made arrangements to stay the night at a friend's home. However, the Respondent forced his way into the property, grabbed a knife and attacked the victim stabbing her repeatedly. She died shortly after the attack.

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Current parole review

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1. The Respondent is now aged 40. His case was referred to the Parole Board in July 2022 by the Applicant to consider whether or not it would be appropriate to direct his release or, in the alternative, whether to advise the Applicant that the Respondent should be transferred to open prison conditions.

2. Previously in May 2021 a Panel of the Parole Board had recommended the Respondent's transfer to open conditions. However, in June 2021, the (then) Applicant rejected the recommendation and, in due course, the Respondent pursued a Judicial Review, the outcome of which was that the High Court found in October 2022 that the decision was inadequately reasoned and therefore unlawful. As a result, it was agreed the decision would be re-taken on the basis of updated reports. In April 2023 the Respondent was informed that a review had taken place and that he was to remain in closed conditions.

3. The current review was adjourned on a number of occasions, and it was not until 2 April 2025 that it came on for hearing before a three-member Panel of the Board comprising two independent members (one of whom chaired the hearing) and a specialist psychologist member.

4. The Panel considered a lengthy dossier and heard evidence from:

? the Community Offender Manager;

? the Prison Offender Manager (POM);

? a prison psychologist;

? a neurodiversity support worker; and

? the Respondent.

1. The Respondent was legally represented throughout, but the Applicant chose not to be represented or to file written submissions.

2. After hearing the oral evidence, the Panel considered it appropriate to adjourn for a full release risk management plan (RMP) with a confirmed accommodation option and funding agreement. The Panel took into account the Respondent's diagnosed neurodiversity, the outcome of the previous review and the delays during the current review and found the (then) professionals' recommendation for a move to open conditions to be beneficial rather than necessary and pragmatic in that it was driven by the limited nature of the RMP.

3. The Panel subsequently received further information in written form and on 27 January 2026 in its written decision directed the Respondent's release.

The Relevant Law

1. The Panel correctly sets out the test for release in its decision.

Parole Board Rules 2019 (as amended)

1. Rule 28(1) of the Parole Board Rules provides the types of decision which are eligible for reconsideration. Decisions concerning whether the prisoner is or is not suitable for release on licence are eligible for reconsideration whether made by a paper panel (rule 19(1)(a) or (b)) or by an oral hearing panel after an oral hearing (rule 25(1)) or by an oral hearing panel which makes the decision on the papers (rule 21(7)). Decisions concerning the termination, amendment, or dismissal of an IPP licence are also eligible for reconsideration (rule 31(6) or rule 31(6A)).

2. Rule 28(2) of the Parole Board Rules provides the sentence types which are eligible for reconsideration. These are indeterminate sentences (rule 28(2)(a)), extended sentences (rule 28(2)(b)), certain types of determinate sentence subject to initial release by the Parole Board (rule 28(2)(c)) and serious terrorism sentences (rule 28(2)(d)).

Irrationality

1. The power of the courts to interfere with a decision of a competent tribunal on the ground of irrationality was defined in Associated Provincial Houses ltd -v- Wednesbury Corporation 1948 1 KB 223 by Lord Greene in these words " if a decision on a competent matter is so unreasonable that no reasonable authority could ever have come to it, then the courts can interfere". The same test applies to a reconsideration panel when determining an application on the basis of irrationality.

2. In R(DSD and others) -v- the Parole Board 2018 EWHC 694 (Admin) a Divisional Court applied this test to Parole Board hearings in these words at para 116 "the issue is whether the release decision was so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it. "

3. In R(on the application of Wells) -v- Parole Board 2019 EWHC 2710 (Admin) Saini J set out what he described as a more nuanced approach in modern public law which was "to test the decision maker's ultimate conclusion against the evidence before it and to ask whether the conclusion can (with due deference and with regard to the panel's expertise) be safely justified on the basis of that evidence, particularly in a context where anxious scrutiny needs to be applied)". This test was adopted by a Divisional Court in the case of R(on the application of the Secretary of State for Justice) -v- the Parole Board ** 2022 EWHC 1282 (Admin).

4. As was made clear by Saini J this is not a different test to the Wednesbury test. The interpretation of and application of the Wednesbury test in Parole hearings as explained in DSD was binding on Saini J.

5. It follows from those principles that in considering an application for reconsideration the reconsideration panel will not substitute its view of the evidence for that of the panel who heard the witnesses.

6. Reconsideration is a discretionary remedy. That means that, even if an error of law, irrationality, or procedural unfairness is established, the Reconsideration Member considering the case is not obliged to direct reconsideration of the panel's decision. The Reconsideration Member can decline to make such a direction having taken into account the particular circumstances of the case, the potential for a different decision to be reached by a new panel, and any delay caused by a grant of reconsideration. That discretion must of course be exercised in a way which is fair to both parties.

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The reply on behalf of the Respondent

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1. I have considered detailed and helpful written representations from solicitors on behalf of the Respondent dated 26 February 2026 inviting me to refuse the application for reconsideration.

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Discussion

1. In dealing with the grounds for reconsideration, it is necessary to stress certain matters of basic importance. The first is that the Reconsideration Mechanism is not a process by which the judgement of the Panel when assessing risk can be lightly interfered with. Nor is it a mechanism in which the member carrying out the reconsideration is entitled to substitute his/her view of the facts in place of those found by the Panel, unless, of course, it is manifestly obvious that there was an error of fact of an egregious nature which can be shown to have directly contributed to the conclusion arrived at by the Panel.

2. The second matter of material importance is that when deciding whether a decision of the Parole Board was irrational, due deference has to be given to the expertise of the Parole Board in making decisions relating to parole.

3. Finally, where a Panel arrives at a conclusion, exercising its judgement based on the evidence before it and having regard to the fact they saw and heard the witnesses, it would be inappropriate to direct that the decision be reconsidered unless it is manifestly obvious that there are compelling reasons for interfering with the decision of the Panel.

4. The Applicant submits that the Respondent has demonstrated a more entrenched pattern of verbal aggression than appears in the Panel's decision and makes particular reference to security reports contained in the dossier from October 2023 and June 2024 as regards abusive and aggressive behaviours towards members of staff.

5. The most serious of these would appear to be confined to a relatively short period during March and April 2024 and the Panel was provided with further detailed information about these incidents in the reports of the POM and the psychologist.

6. The Panel was clearly well informed of, and gave consideration to, these incidents which it deals with in paras. 2.4 to 2.7 of the decision and was aware from the dossier that by July 2024 the POM was reporting as follows:

" I have spoken to staff on [the Respondent's] current unit, and they have reported the following: [he] is getting on well on the unit, he does become agitated at times, but this is more so when he is speaking to his mother due to the way his mother feels she is being treated by the prison. He engages with the regime, he attends his employment everyday without any hesitation, he attends the gym. He has been engaging with a few other prisoners and this interaction has been positive. [The Respondent] also positively engages with staff on the unit, he has not lost his temper with staff and if he does become agitated, he is able to calm himself down quickly. He locks up on time and does what he is asked to by staff."

1. In addition, no further similar incidents are reported and it is noteworthy that, during the nearly six years that the Respondent has resided at his current prison, there have been no reports of actual violence and throughout that time the Respondent has maintained enhanced IEP status and for some of that time was super-enhanced. His last proven adjudication was in October 2020.

2. The Applicant also prays in aid of the application the Respondent's refusal during the parole period to engage in risk-related interventions and assessments. I find that this was not unrelated to the High Court proceedings and the (then) Applicant's further consideration of the earlier recommendation for open conditions which was not concluded until April 2023 and the delays in the current review which took over two and a half years to reach a hearing. Despite this, the Panel noted the POM's evidence that there was no " surge of poor behaviour " throughout those delays or the ongoing court proceedings.

3. The POM also considered that, given the Respondent's neurodiversity, the intense prison environment was not a good environment for him.

4. The psychologist told the Panel that, although initially unwilling to engage, the Respondent subsequently, " reached out " to her, thus enabling her to interview him and prepare an addendum report.

5. The psychologist confirmed that there was no core risk reduction work outstanding for the Respondent to complete and his solicitor sets out in the representations full details of the offence-focused work he has undertaken, which include a large number of relevant 1:1 sessions, and which the Panel found had reduced his risk.

6. The psychologist's view was that some of the Respondent's responses were linked to the custodial environment and that, whilst he was not a rigid thinker, his sense of right and justice were strong and she considered his only imminent risk to be for verbal aggression.

7. The Panel found that, whilst the Respondent could on occasions react aggressively to particular triggers, this was usually verbal abuse and linked to poor neurodiversity management.

8. The Panel concluded:

" He has previous convictions that demonstrate poor emotional control, poor consequential thinking, and use of violence. There is evidence of past failure to comply with supervision. However, the improved understanding of his neurodiversity, both by professionals and by himself, will enhance risk management. [His] custodial behaviour has been broadly positive with a steady trajectory of improvement, especially since there has been increased understanding of his neurodivergent presentation."

1. The Panel also found that the RMP was comprehensive and robust, offering appropriate monitoring and residential support with clear restrictions and controls to support the Respondent's safe management and that the risk he poses is manageable within the plan with which he is likely to engage as well as complying with the licence conditions.

2. The Applicant's argument for irrationality relies on the submission that the Panel placed insufficient weight upon the Respondent's continued use of verbal aggression. I do not accept that is the case and find that the Panel was well aware of the incidents relied on and carefully considered their relevance and the weight to be attributed to them, given his vulnerabilities, the surrounding circumstances and (as it found) a sustained, overall improvement in his behaviour and presentation.

3. The question of weight is, of course, a matter pre-eminently for the Panel and I am satisfied that it carefully considered the large amount of written and oral evidence before it and attributed weight where appropriate, being fully cognizant (as demonstrated in the decision) of the incidents of verbally abusive and aggressive behaviour demonstrated by the Respondent on a limited number of occasions and properly weighed these against the considerable amount of other evidence which led the Panel to find that the test for release was met in this case.

4. I find that the Panel clearly set out its findings following an exercise of its judgement and properly explained its reasons for concluding that, a pplying the appropriate test, it was satisfied that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the Respondent should be confined.

5. The bar for a finding of irrationality is set at a high level, and I am satisfied that, applying the appropriate test, the Panel's decision to direct the Respondent's release does not fall to be reconsidered on the basis of irrationality.

Decision

1. For the reasons I have given, I do not consider that the decision was irrational and, accordingly, the application for reconsideration is refused.

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Peter H. F. Jones

17 March 2026

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