Darymple, Application for Reconsideration [2025] PBRA 274 (10 December 2025) [2025] PBRA 274

PBRA
Darymple, Application for Reconsideration [2025] PBRA 274 (10 December 2025)
[2025] PBRA 274 · 2025-10-31
[1]This is an application by Dalrymple (the Applicant) for reconsideration of a decision dated 31 October 2025 not to direct his release. The decision was made by a panel following an oral hearing.[2]Rule 28(1) of the Parole Board Rules 2019 (as amended) (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.[3]I have considered the application on the papers. These are the decision, the dossier (consisting of 209 numbered pages), and the application for reconsideration. Background[4]On 1 April 1996, the Applicant was convicted of murder. He received a sentence of life imprisonment with a tariff of 18 years. His tariff expired in February 2014.[5]The Applicant was 24 years old at the time of sentencing and is now 54 years old.[6]He was released on licence in August 2021 after an oral hearing before the Parole Board. His licence was revoked in October 2024, and he was returned to custody following allegations that he was being controlling and coercive to, and had assaulted, an undisclosed partner (Ms J). Request for Reconsideration[7]The application for reconsideration has been submitted by solicitors on behalf of the Applicant. It argues that the decision was irrational.[8]The submissions are supplemented by written arguments to which reference will be made in the Discussion section below. Current Parole Review[9]The Applicant's case was referred to the Parole Board by the Secretary of State (the Respondent) to consider whether to direct his release. This is the Applicant's first parole review since his recall.[10]The case proceeded to an oral hearing on 21 October 2025, before a two-member panel, including a psychiatrist specialist member. The panel took oral evidence from the Applicant, the Prison Offender Manager (POM), the Community Offender Manager (COM), and a forensic psychologist commissioned by HMPPS. The Applicant was legally represented throughout the hearing.[11]The panel accepted that the Applicant had demonstrated generally stable behaviour in custody following recall and had engaged in some positive work; however, it concluded that his conduct on licence revealed repeated and significant concerns. These included poor compliance, difficulties with supervision, failure to follow instructions, breaches of exclusion zones and GPS requirements, and a pattern of challenging or disruptive behaviour towards professionals. The panel also found the Applicant's account of his contact and relationship with Ms J to be inconsistent and not credible, particularly in light of the nature of the concerns reported to probation. Although the panel did not make findings of fact on those allegations, the inconsistencies in the Applicant's explanations and the concealment of the relationship were considered directly relevant to the assessment of honesty, openness and the manageability of future risk.[12]The professional witnesses, including the POM and COM, assessed the Applicant as posing a high risk of causing serious harm, particularly within or around intimate relationships, and were not able to support release. They emphasised the Applicant's limited engagement with risk-focused work, his continued difficulties in accepting responsibility, and his failure to apply the skills expected from previous interventions. Although there was tentative support for release from the HMPPS psychologist, the panel concluded that the concerns raised by the POM and COM could not be managed safely in the community through external controls alone and that further structured work in custody remained necessary.[13]In those circumstances, the panel was not satisfied that the statutory test for release had been met. The panel also declined to recommend a move to open conditions, finding that core risk-reduction work remained outstanding, that the risk of abscond was not clearly low, and that the Applicant had not yet reduced his risks to a level consistent with periods of release from an open prison. It is only the decision not to direct release that is subject to reconsideration. The Relevant Law[14]The Parole Board will direct release if it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined. Parole Board Rules 2019 (as amended)[15]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)).[16]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)).[17]A decision to recommend or not to recommend a move to open conditions is not eligible for reconsideration under rule 28. This has been confirmed by the decision on the previous reconsideration application in Barclay [2019] PBRA 6 . Irrationality[18]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 (CA) 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.[19]In R(DSD and others) v Parole Board [2018] EWHC 694 (Admin) the Divisional Court applied this test to Parole Board hearings in these words (at [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 ."
[20]In R(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 the Divisional Court in R(Secretary of State for Justice) v Parole Board [2022] EWHC 1282 (Admin).[21]As was made clear by Saini J in Wells, 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.[22]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.[23]Further while the views of the professional witnesses must be properly considered by a panel deciding on release, the panel is not bound to accept their assessment. The panel must however make clear in its reasons why it is disagreeing with the assessment of the witnesses. The reply on behalf of the Respondent[24]The Respondent has advised that no representations will be submitted in response to this application. Discussion[25]The Applicant argues that the panel's decision was irrational. Offending history[26]The first submission is that the panel placed irrational weight on the Applicant's historic offending, which is now very old and has been followed by a lengthy period without further convictions. Nothing in the decision suggests that the panel treated the Applicant's offending history as determinative or disproportionate. Rather, the panel summarised the history in the context of identifying established risk factors, including the use of extreme violence in the index offence and the longstanding pattern of poor compliance earlier in his life. Those are relevant elements of risk formulation and were appropriately considered alongside more recent behaviour. This was a legitimate and orthodox starting point for the risk analysis. I do not regard the panel's approach as irrational. Time on licence and compliance[27]The second ground asserts that the panel gave undue weight to the Applicant's difficulties on licence, particularly given periods of stability and the panel's own inability to make findings of fact on the recall allegations. This argument conflates two distinct strands of the panel's reasoning.[28]First, the panel drew on evidence wholly unrelated to the recall allegations, including the series of compliance warnings recorded throughout 2022 and 2023, non-attendance at supervision meetings, difficulties maintaining his GPS tag, and challenging or disruptive behaviour towards supervising staff. These concerns are set out in the COM and POM reports and appear repeatedly in the dossier. They were reasonably capable of informing the panel's conclusions about the Applicant's reliability, openness and capacity to work within a community-based risk-management framework.[29]Second, the panel did not treat the recall allegations as proven but was entitled to consider the Applicant's conduct around them insofar as it shed light on compliance, openness, honesty and risk management, not on factual guilt. That is a critical distinction. Even in the absence of proven allegations, the panel was entitled to take account of the Applicant's explanations for the concealment of his relationship with Ms J, the inconsistencies in his accounts over time and the concerns raised by probation about his limited engagement. These were risk-relevant features emerging from the Applicant's own evidence and from professional testimony. There is a crucial distinction between limited evidence and no relevant evidence.[30]The panel's conclusions on licence behaviour were therefore based on material unconnected to the disputed allegations and cannot be characterised as irrational. Contact with Ms J[31]The third argument concerns the panel's treatment of the Applicant's unauthorised contact with Ms J while in custody. The submission asserts that because the panel could not make findings of fact about the alleged relationship or conduct on licence, it should not have drawn any adverse inference from post-recall contact.[32]This mischaracterises the panel's reasoning. The decision does not rely on the disputed allegations themselves. It relies on the admitted breach of a clear prohibition on contact while subject to restrictions, and on the Applicant's shifting explanations for it. The panel heard evidence that the Applicant received email contact from Ms J and replied despite knowing that such contact was not permitted. This could have resulted in an adjudication, but the matter was not dealt with in time. This spoke directly to compliance and risk-management and did not require any finding about the nature of the underlying relationship. That distinction is evident on the face of the decision and the submissions do not undermine its rationality. Assessment of risk[33]The final substantive submission is that the panel irrationally accepted assessments indicating a high risk within intimate relationships. The argument emphasises that the Applicant's last violent conviction was in 1996 and that professionals did not consider his risk to be imminent.[34]The panel's reasoning on this point was clear, structured and supported by professional evidence. The psychologist assessed that core work remained outstanding, that the Applicant's risk in intimate contexts required further examination and that certain risk factors including emotional instability and relationship-based triggers were still present. The COM likewise assessed the Applicant as presenting a high risk of serious harm to partners and expressed concerns about his attitude, presentation and limited insight into relational dynamics. The panel was entitled to rely on these assessments and did not need to identify imminence of harm in order to conclude that the statutory test was not met. The public protection test does not require immediacy, only necessity.[35]The submission that the panel relied on risk factors " present within the allegations " is unfounded. The risk formulation is based upon longstanding patterns identified in previous assessments, including the history of jealousy and emotional volatility in relationships. Nothing in the decision suggests that the unproven allegations were treated as proven. The argument does not demonstrate irrationality. Conclusion[36]Each of the grounds advanced has been considered individually and collectively. The panel's reasoning is clear, evidence-based and well within the range of reasonable conclusions open to it. The fact that the panel was unable to make findings of fact on the allegations involving Ms J did not preclude it from examining the Applicant's wider pattern of compliance and behaviour, nor from drawing limited inferences relevant to risk management. None of the points raised demonstrates that the decision was irrational. Decision[37]For the reasons set out above, I am not satisfied that the panel's decision was irrational. The application for reconsideration is therefore refused. Stefan Fafinski 10 December 2025