The Supreme Court has rejected a prisoner’s claim that prison authorities were legally responsible for harm he suffered after embarking on a prolonged hunger strike.
The appellant, identified as P McD, was serving a 12-year sentence following convictions for burglary and assault. While in prison he became convinced that his food was being contaminated by people spitting on it and that liquid falling on him during exercise contained human waste.
He responded by refusing food. The judgment records that the hunger strike brought him close to death before prison staff and specialist counsellors persuaded him to end it.
P McD argued that shortcomings in the prison complaints procedure contributed to the continuation of his protest. Part of his case was that, had an adequate system existed, his concerns might have been addressed sooner and some of the harm avoided.
The Supreme Court rejected that route to liability. Mr Justice Peter Charleton held that negligence requires a legally recognised duty of care, not merely foreseeable harm. Although prison authorities do owe prisoners duties arising from their control and custody, the court held that this did not extend to legal responsibility for the consequences of a deliberate and continuing hunger strike in the circumstances presented.
The judgment distinguished prolonged self-starvation from an immediate suicide risk following arrest or sudden confinement, where authorities may be required to take reasonable preventative steps. A hunger strike involves repeated autonomous choices over time, the court said, and does not by itself create the claimed negligence liability.
The court also noted that prisoners retain access to the High Court to challenge allegedly unlawful conditions of detention.
Separately, the Supreme Court rejected declaratory relief concerning prison policy. A declaration is intended to settle concrete legal rights or liabilities between parties, not to pronounce that a public authority’s policy might have been better designed.
The court concluded that there was no basis for any order in P McD’s favour.