The High Court has refused to quash decisions arising from a Wheatfield Prison disciplinary case after finding that Gerald Dunne had not established a breach of fair procedures.
In a judgment delivered on 20 June 2019, Ms Justice O’Regan considered complaints about access to CCTV footage and a knife found in Mr Dunne’s cell, correspondence from his solicitor, and the handling of an appeal. The case was a judicial review. The court concluded that there was no sufficient factual basis to quash the Governor’s decision of 7 November 2017 or the Minister’s decision of 23 November 2017.
Prison officers searching Mr Dunne’s single-occupancy cell on 7 November 2017 found an improvised knife under his mattress and a nearly full bag of razor blades on a shelf. He did not dispute that possessing either item was contrary to prison rules, but said he did not know about the knife and argued that others could access his cell while he was at work. A disciplinary hearing found the report proven and imposed a sanction.
The court noted conflicting accounts about whether Mr Dunne saw CCTV footage. The Governor had not claimed to show him all of it. The judge found that the footage was not evidence against him: it had been reviewed to check his claim that others could enter the cell. The court also found that his solicitor’s request for footage covering a “reasonable period” before the search was too general to establish a failure of fair procedure.
On the knife, the judge found no evidence that it had not been preserved in line with the solicitor’s updated request. The judgment also records the Governor’s evidence that fingerprint testing was not routine and that prior general use and the wrapping could affect the usefulness of any prints. The judge found no evidential basis to conclude that the handling of the knife breached the relevant procedural requirement.
The appeal issue arose after Mr Dunne signed an incentivised-regime appeal form on 14 November. The prison officer who supplied it said Mr Dunne had specifically requested that type of form. The judge identified a conflict in the accounts but noted that the form clearly provided for a decision by the Governor. The Governor rejected it on 17 November because it did not state grounds concerning a regime-level change. A separate petition to the Minister, submitted on 23 November, was deemed out of time.
The judge described the lack of a response to the solicitor before the Minister’s letter as regrettable, but found it did not amount to a breach of fair procedure. The application for orders quashing the two decisions was refused.