Prisoner wins phone rights case

Last Updated: 10:28AM GMT 22 Mar 2002

A PRISONER today secured a legal victory for jail inmates after he won the right to talk to journalists on the telephone on “matters of legitimate public interest”.

John Hirst’s application for judicial review against Home Secretary David Blunkett and the Home Office was successful at the High Court sitting in Cardiff.

Mr Justice Elias ruled that the Home Office policy on dealing with access to the press by phone by serving prisoners was unlawful.

Unless the Government appeals, it will be forced to review its stance on the issue.

Lawyers for Hirst, who was given life for manslaughter in 1980 and who is in Sudbury prison, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, had argued that Mr Blunkett’s policy of allowing the telephone calls in only exceptional circumstances breached Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of expression.

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Judge lifts ban on prisoners phoning the press

By Matt Born
Last Updated: 8:21PM GMT 22 Mar 2002 [Deadtreepress report 23/302]

PRISON curbs on inmates talking to the press about the conditions in which they are held are unlawful, the High Court said yesterday.

Mr Justice Elias said that the Home Office policy, which prevents prisoners having telephone conversations with journalists, was in breach of their right of free speech.

He made his ruling after John Hirst, who has served 22 years for killing his landlady with an axe, sought a judicial review of the ban.

Hirst brought the case after falling foul of Prison Service rules allowing inmates to speak to the media only in “exceptional circumstances”.

Hirst, the General Secretary of the Association of Prisoners “trade union”, had given a series of interviews to The Telegraph, Radio 4’s Today programme and Radio 5 Live, among others, about a High Court case he had brought seeking the right of prisoners to vote in general elections.

As a result, he was placed in segregation, then transferred from Nottingham to Rye Hill, Warwicks, a prison where inmates are allowed to call only 10 vetted numbers.

Home Office lawyers had argued that prisoners lose the right to speak to the press as part of their punishment.

In any case, even though they could not speak to journalists by telephone, they were allowed to write to them.

However in his written judgment, Mr Justice Elias agreed with Hirst’s lawyers that the restriction on speaking directly to the media was in breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of expression.

Hirst’s case was supported by statements from a number of national newspaper and television journalists, including the broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, and the Telegraph.

In sworn submissions, the journalists said that for news of prison issues to be properly and effectively reported it was essential they be allowed to speak to inmates directly.

Mr Justice Elias said the ban “appears to assume that sending information by letter will always, or at least virtually always, suffice to meet the prisoner’s objective.

“In the light of the comments from the journalists, that seems to me to be an unjustified assumption. It will sometimes be enough, but not always.”

Hirst praised the judge for his “courage in standing up for human rights”.

The Home Office is considering an appeal.

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[Upon consideration the Home Office decided not to appeal the judge’s decision. Just as well, because the judge’s decision was legally flawless. However, the Prison Service did implement measures to curb the power of the prisoners union, for example, the introduction of the IEP scheme]