AC-2025-LON-001576 - [2025] EWHC 2592 (Admin)

Conclusions – Issue 3

It seems to me that the terms of the Recall Report and the reference to it in the Secretary of State’s short reasons demonstrate that its contents not only form part of the decision-making process, but may be relied upon to show the Secretary of State’s reasoning. The situation seems to me to be broadly analogous to the principle in a planning context, that “Where a planning decision is taken in line with an officer's report, then there is an assumption that the reasons for that decision are those set out in the report” (see Bates v Maldon DC [2019] 2019] EWCA Civ 1272 at [16(vi)], citing Palmer v Herefordshire Council [2016] EWCA Civ 1061 at [7] per Lewison LJ). That approach does not require the prisoner to embark on a hunt for the ‘true’ reasons, given the fact that a dossier including the Recall Report is supplied post release to the offender, and it enables the Secretary of State’s reasons to be brief, rather than repetitious.

The fact that the decision-maker may – as happened in this case – depart from the reasons set out in the Recall Report does not alter this analysis. If there are differences of approach (as in the reliance on the breach of two, not three, licence conditions), then plainly that part of the reasons in the recall dossier cannot stand. But that merely underscores the default position, that where there is consistency, the assumption that the Secretary of State agrees with and has accepted the reasons given for recommending recall is, in my view, a reasonable one.

In addition, a key aspect of the passages relied upon by Defendant directly concern the assessment of the ‘necessity of recall’, the second limb of Calder. It would in my view be artificial to argue that the Secretary of State failed to consider this issue, merely because the reasoning about it was found in the Recall Report rather than in a decision based upon that report. This supports the conclusion that both must be read together to ascertain the reasons for the recall decision.