Zenshen, Application for Reconsideration by the Secretary of State for Justice [2026] PBRA 4 (08 January 2026) [2026] PBRA 4

PBRA
Zenshen, Application for Reconsideration by the Secretary of State for Justice [2026] PBRA 4 (08 January 2026)
[2026] PBRA 4 · 2025-10-30
[1]This is an application by the Secretary of State for Justice (the Applicant) for reconsideration of a decision of an oral hearing dated 30 October 2025 to direct the release of Zenshen (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. I discuss below whether the application was made in time.[3]I have considered the application on the papers. These are: · The decision dated 30 October 2025. · The application for reconsideration dated 25 November 2025 signed on behalf of the Secretary of State by the Reconsideration and High Court Section of HM Prison and Protection Service. · The reply to the reconsideration application signed by the Respondent's solicitors and dated 28 November 2025. · A response on behalf of the Applicant dated 15 December 2025, as I directed on 28 November 2025, with attachments. · The dossier, which now consists of 692 numbered pages, ending with the amended decision (amended to take account of further proposed licence conditions).[4]The Respondent's legal representative argues that the application was out of time, and therefore the Parole Board is functus officio : that is, no longer has the standing to take any action in respect of the release decision, which has become final and must take effect. It was in respect of that argument that I directed, and received, a response from the Applicant. I discuss this below. Request for Reconsideration[5]The sole ground advanced for seeking a reconsideration is that " the decision to direct release is irrational, because the Respondent has spent much of his sentence in high security and segregation environments, with insufficient testing in community-based settings and limited exposure to stressors which may activate his identified areas of risk and problematic personality traits ". I discuss below the particulars given in support of this ground.[6]The application also raises an issue about the oral hearing panel's approach to the victim personal statements in the dossier. Background[7]The Respondent was 26 years old in 1991, when he received a sentence of life imprisonment, with a minimum term subsequently set at 30 years, for murder. His tariff expired in 2021. The murder was described by experienced High Court Judges, both at sentence and on an appeal against the sentence imposed, as appalling. It was, as the Applicant's representative submitted to the panel, a particularly brutal and premeditated murder. The Respondent had relevant previous convictions. To quote the Court of Appeal:
" They include a conviction in 1979 at Juvenile Court for an offence of arson when a care order was made and then more significantly in January 1985 a conviction at the Crown Court for offences of attempted burglary, wounding with intent, unlawful wounding and burglary, for which he was sent to youth custody for four years. Such a sentence on a young offender suggests that these were very serious offences ."
The Respondent is now 61. Current parole review[8]The Applicant's letter referring the case to the Parole Board is dated 8 July 2024. It requested the Board to consider directing release. The Respondent was at the time of the reference in open conditions, having been transferred there in November 2023.[9]The hearing took place remotely on 21 October 2025. The panel consisted of two independent members and one psychologist member of the Parole Board. The panel considered the dossier and heard evidence from the Prison Offender Manager (POM), two Community Offender Managers (COMs), and a prison-based psychologist, as well as the Respondent. Both the Applicant and the Respondent were represented at the hearing. The Relevant Law[10]The panel correctly sets out in its decision letter the test for release. Parole Board Rules 2019 (as amended)[11]Rule 28(1) of the Parole Board Rules provides the types of decision which are eligible for reconsideration. This is an eligible decision and an eligible sentence type. Irrationality[12]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.[13]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. "[14]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).[15]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.[16]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. The reply on behalf of the prisoner[17]The Respondent first raises the issue of whether the application is out of time. The point taken is as follows. Parole Board Rule 28(3) states that this application must be made and served on the other party no later than 21 days after the written decision is sent to the parties. Rule (10)(4)(a) provides that the Applicant must provide both the prisoner and, if he has one, his representative with any document which is required to be provided. Documents must be served by being sent to a secure electronic address where a party provides one (Rule 11(1)(a)). This is the only method of service approved by the Rules for a represented party.[18]The argument continues. By Rule 12(1), unless a direction otherwise is made, documents are deemed served under Rule 11(1)(a) on the next working day after the documents were transmitted .[19]In this case, says the Respondent, the written decision was sent out by email at 11.10 on 14 ( sic : the actual date was 4) November 2024. Therefore, it is argued, the latest date for the application to be served on the Respondent and his representative was 25 November 2025. The application is dated 25 November 2025 , and was in fact sent out by email at 18.27 that day, but by operation of Rule 12(1) is deemed to have been served on 26 November 2025, and is therefore out of time .[20]I have added all emphasis in this section. I discuss the argument below. The Respondent also makes a number of points about the substance of the application, which, again, I discuss below. Discussion[21]As to jurisdiction , the Applicant points out that Rule 12(1) applies to the service of the written decision as it does to any other document required to be served. Therefore, the written decision is deemed to have been served on 5 November 2025; 21 days thereafter is 26 November; the application is, on the Respondent's argument, deemed to be served on 26 November, and is therefore in time.[22]I am impressed by the elegance of this argument. I think it is correct. The application was made in time in accordance with the Parole Board Rules. If I thought otherwise, I would exercise the power under Rule 9 to extend the time for the service of the application to 26 November 2025 in the interests of justice. Alternatively, I would do what the reconsideration Parole Board member did in the case of Roberts [2024] PBRA 249 . The judicial member in that case held that the application by the Secretary of State was out of time, and therefore the Board was functus officio, but before doing so he examined the grounds for reconsideration advanced and rejected them. The procedure adopted by the Board member in Roberts parallels that adopted by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) when considering an out-of-time appeal to that court, and is plainly a sensible one: first to consider the merits of the appeal, and then to decide whether to extend time for it.[23]In any event, I am satisfied that the Parole Board is not functus officio . I can properly turn to the merits of the application, and I can be brief. The essential complaint raised is that the panel took insufficient account of the limited time the Respondent had spent in open conditions, and the limited number of releases on temporary licence (RoTLs) he has undertaken. The application makes a number of points in support of that assertion. Those RoTLs have taken place away from his proposed release location - the two cities are 25 or so miles apart. The proposed release location is not what he would choose, which may lead to instability. The Applicant further refers to the Respondent's deep-rooted personality traits. The Applicant points to the Respondent's uncertainty about how he might react to hostility or aggression in the community, and to his limited support network.[24]All of these are matters of which the panel was fully aware, and which it investigated during the hearing and assessed in its written decision. They formed part of the Applicant's representative's written closing submissions to the panel. What the Applicant seeks to do is to persuade me to take a different view of the weight to be attached to the various factors, including those which justify release, from that taken by the panel.[25]Where a panel arrives at a conclusion, exercising its judgement based on the evidence before it and having regard to the fact that 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. The application raises no such compelling reasons, whether taking the matters advanced separately or together.[26]The reconsideration mechanism is not a process whereby the judgement of a panel when assessing risk can be lightly interfered with. Nor is it a mechanism where I should be expected to substitute my view of the facts as 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.[27]The Respondent's reply to the application takes issue with the Applicant's assertions as to the effect of the evidence. I need not, indeed cannot, adjudicate on these matters: the approach I must take is established by case law which is binding on me and is clearly set out above.[28]The further matter raised relates to the approach the panel took to the victim personal statements of the family of the man the Respondent murdered. It is expressed as this:
" The [Applicant] considers that the approach taken to the Victim Personal Statements may have affected them testing [the Respondent's] empathy for his victims and his understanding of and attitude to the consequences of his actions. "
[29]What the panel said about the victim personal statements is this, at Paragraph 1.14. of the written decision:
" This panel read very carefully the victim personal statements and could not help but be moved by the compelling account of harm, grief and distress which still blights the lives of the family. The panel had no reason to doubt [the Respondent's] account of why he singled out the victim's property, but it must compound the family's distress to know of [the Respondent's] full account of the senseless murder of their beloved father ."
The Applicant does not explain how he suggests the panel's approach to the victim personal statements might render the decision to direct release irrational. If at the hearing the Applicant's representative considered that the Respondent's empathy and understanding of and attitude to the consequences of his actions needed further testing, she was entitled to ask questions of the Respondent and other witnesses in order to do so.[30]I should add, though it is not in fact relevant to the issues I have to decide, that all the professional witnesses considered the Respondent's risk of serious violence to be manageable in the community. Decision[31]For the reasons I have given, I do not consider that the decision was irrational and accordingly the application for reconsideration is refused. HH Patrick Thomas KC 08 January 2026