High Court victory for offender 'rebel', 17

An "awkward and rebellious troublemaker" who says he was unfairly punished for his misbehaviour at a young offender institution has triumphed in a High Court test case.

The 17-year-old's landmark victory could force the Department of Justice into a wholesale rethink of the punishment regimes at young offender institutions all over the country.

The youth caused so much trouble at Wetherby YOI, West Yorkshire, that he spent more than a third of the 300 days he was there on various forms of punishment, including being banned from "association" with other inmates.

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Judge Mr Justice Holman, yesterday recognised that the youth – referred to only as "KB" and who was serving a three-year sentence – was "an undoubtedly awkward and rebellious troublemaker" at the YOI between July 2008 and May last year.

But he nevertheless ruled him the "victim" of the YOI's "unlawful" disciplinary regime.

Pointing to the "power imbalance" between inmates and YOI officers, the judge said the way the punishments were imposed on KB lacked "a minimum level of procedural fairness".

The system in place allowed officers to act as "both witness and accuser" and, in some situations, even as "victim" and "arbitrator of the punishment" imposed, he told the court.

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Given the power of officers over inmates, he said Department of Justice arguments that punishments under the regime – known as "Discipline Incident Reports" (DIR) – were imposed only with the consent of inmates were simply "illusory".

The judge acknowledged that it would be a "recipe for chaos" for him to overturn the entire DIR disciplinary regime at this stage.

But, upholding KB's judicial review challenge, he concluded: "The Secretary of State and HM YOI Wetherby, and HM Prison Service if there are similar systems in operation elsewhere, will need to consider and take stock of this judgment."