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"Evidence" too secret for prisoner

01 May 2004

Harry Roberts is now 67. He was jailed 37 years ago, convicted of murdering three policemen during an armed robbery. The trial judge, handing down a life sentence, recommended that he serve 30 years. In 1999, thee years after his tariff expiry, the then-Home Secretary Jack Straw accepted a Parole Board recommendation that Harry be moved to an open prison. However, in 2001 he was returned to a closed jail, on "security" grounds, and told he would be given the opportunity to respond to the allegations made against him when he next applied for parole. The Parole Board, though, decided that the "security" information was too sensitive to release to him, and appointed Nicholas Blake QC as an independent specially- appointed advocate, who could be given the information but could not tell Harry its substance. The Parole Board has no statutory power to appoint such advocates at a parole hearing and Harry has mounted a legal challenge to the process employed against him. He compares his situation to that of the inmates at Guantanamo Bay, in that he is faced with "secret allegations, secret evidence, and a secret trail." His lawyers are going to seek leave to appeal to the House of lords, following the Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the Parole Board's use of a special advocate.