6.14R (Gill) v Secretary of State for Justice [2010] EWHC 364 (Admin), (2010) 13 CCLR 193
The Secretary of State had unlawfully failed to make reasonable adjustments so that a prisoner with a learning disability could undertake offending behaviour work that was comprehensible and meaningful for him
Facts: Mr Gill was a life-sentence prisoner who had served more than twice his tariff. The Parole Board was unwilling to direct his release or recommend transfer to open conditions until he had completed offending behaviour programmes. However, having a learning disability, Mr Gill had been unable to complete such programmes.
Judgment: Cranston J allowed Mr Gill’s application for judicial review, holding that:
1) Applying the approach identified by Blake J in R (Lunt) v Liverpool City Council [2009] EWHC 2356 (Admin):
i) The Secretary of State has policies, practices and procedures regarding access to offender behaviour programmes;
ii) Those policies, practices and procedures include a statement that IQ in the region of 80 or below may prevent meaningful engagement with the material in a programme, and this makes it difficult or impossible for inmates with a learning disability like the claimant’s to make use of the offending behaviour work within the same period as other prisoners. The claimant has been prevented from making use of offending behaviour courses because of his learning disability;
iii) Therefore the Secretary of State came under a duty to take such steps as were reasonable in all the circumstances to change those practices so that the claimant could access offending behaviour work in the same way as prisoners who are not disabled;
iv) The Secretary of State has failed to take such steps and to consider what steps could be taken, including for instance alternative means of enabling the claimant to undertake offending behaviour work, additional aids and services, or transfer;
v) The failure is not justified. It is no answer to raise the spectre of ruinous costs if the Secretary of State had to offer adapted courses to all prisoners with limited intellectual abilities. This case is concerned with this particular claimant.
2) The Secretary of State had failed, without good reason, to comply with his own policies regarding completion of offending behaviour work, and making reasonable adjustments for prisoners with disabilities.
3) (Obiter) The issue in this case concerns a purely governmental function, the continued detention of the claimant, and is not concerned with the provision of a service within section 19 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.