The High Court has dismissed a claim that remand prisoners have an entitlement to physical contact with their families during prison visits.
Mr Justice Peter Charleton today ruled that John Foy was not entitled to physical contact with his family during their visits to him while he was a remand prisoner at Cloverhill Prison. Foy has since received a lengthy sentence for armed robbery and is detained in another prison.
Mr Foy had claimed, in proceedings against the governor of Cloverhill Prison, the denial of physical contact with his family while he was a remand prisoner presumed in law to be innocent of the offence with which he is charged breaches his rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights.
The court heard Cloverhill Prison operates a policy where family visits to prisoners are generally in closed circumstances. A prisoner is separated from his family by a screen preventing physical contact. Prisoners are also allowed “box” or open visits, where they can meet relatives in a small room, if prison officers are also present.
Mr Foy brought his proceedings after the governor of Cloverhill, concerned at the number of visits, introduced a system in September 2009 where prisoners had to submit visitor nomination forms. Before that, he had received a number of screened visits and one open visit from family members.
The forms which included names address and relationship towards the prisoner also required those attending to produce an acceptable photo ID. The new system also reduced the number of visits for remand prisoners from six of 15 minutes per week to four half an hour visits per week.
Mr Foy refused to sign the form, and on two occasions his wife was refused entry. He subsequently filled in the names of those whom he wished to have visit him but did not sign his name in protest and was allowed screened visits.
When Mr Foy had previously been on remand in 2001 he was allowed open visits from his family.
The governor denied Mr Foy’s rights were breached and argued the visiting system was within the discretion of the prison rules. He argued screened visits were best practise and the logic of them was to prevent the unlawful smuggling into prisons of drugs. In remand prisons such as Cloverhill, pressure was put on younger, inexperienced prisoners to facilitate such smuggling, he added.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Charleton said the governor’s decision on the type of visits prisoners can receive related to the management of a prison and was not wholly unreasonable, arbitrary or discriminatory. Therefore judicial review of it was “not possible”.
The prison governor was entitled to protect the environment of detention and rehabilitation and that had lead to a general decision whereby screened visits of remand prisoners from their families are the norm, he said.
In the context of the problems described by the governor, his decision could not be regarded as unreasonable, the judge said. A sufficient level of flexibility remained to allow for contact between a prisoner and his family where security risks are deemed to be at an appropriately low level, he added.