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

Conclusions – Limb 1 and Condition 5(i)

Despite the absence of details about the underlying facts, I accept that the Defendant’s submission that notification of the fact that charges had been brought against the Claimant was sufficient “evidence upon which [the Defendant] could reasonably conclude that there had been a breach” of the ‘good behaviour’ condition, at the material time. I do not accept that, at the stage of recall, there was an obligation to find out more about the underlying facts or the evidence leading to this reasonably straightforward offence, and the fact of the charges implied that there had been an assessment of the evidence by the prosecuting authorities. The Probation Service had also learnt that the reason why the allegation was not proceeded with was due to the belief that the Claimant was subject to supervision (rather than through evidential weakness).

Although the Claimant argues that the alleged offence was a minor one, I note that “excessive alcohol use and illicit drug use acting as disinhibitors” were factors in the index offences of January 2022, contributing to the risk of serious harm (see the Pre-Sentence Report). So there was a real reason to be concerned about the allegation, and also to decide that such conduct would, in principle, ‘undermine the purpose of the licence period’.

However, I am not satisfied that there were reasonable grounds to further conclude that the Claimant had been “undermining the purpose of the supervision order” because he had been “going between the Republic of Ireland and the UK and not submitting to his licence while in the UK”. This is the second limb of 5(i) and which the Defendant continues to rely upon. There are two reasons to be seriously concerned about this conclusion:

There is nothing in the Recall Report which explained to the Secretary of State that there were reasons to suspect – as a minimum – that the Claimant did not know he was subject to supervision on licence, and/or had not been told of this on release from prison in Ireland. The Report does disclose that “Mr Quillagan was extradited from custody and has had no contact with probation”, but that falls short of acknowledging the lack of evidence of discussion with the Claimant about continuing licence obligations post extradition, etc, or absence of any request to him to make such contact. That was a material omission, also reflected directly in the decision that Mr Quilligan had breached condition 5(iii) – a decision that the Defendant now concedes cannot be relied upon. As a result, the material that was provided to the decision-maker for this aspect of the decision was not reasonably accurate.

Second, and linked to this, there was no discussion of the Claimant’s culpability for this potential breach, or the lack of it. Benson establishes that the question of whether the breach was culpable should be considered, but it was not. I accept that there was no ‘explanation’ from the Claimant to consider at this stage, but the file showed the unusual circumstances of the Claimant’s release and the lack of evidence that a completed licence had been explained to him.

As to the issue of whether ‘ignorance is an excuse’, the Defendant draws a distinction between a breach of condition for a reason which is outside the Claimant’s control (e.g., arriving late back at his approved premises due to being taken ill) and “lack of awareness” of a licence and its conditions. In the second case, the risk to the public remains – and this the key issue.

Despite the careful way in which this argument was framed by Mr Laverack, it seems to me that ultimately this is an oversimplification. The question of ‘culpability’ or intentionality remains relevant, even if it is not the only issue. This is not only out of fairness to an offender, but also because the extent of any risk to the public is affected by whether any failure to ‘submit to the licence’ was deliberate or unintentional; it affects the issue of whether and how supervision might be restored.

These issues are therefore linked to the second Calder condition, the necessity of recall.