Paper hearing case study

Alan was aged 35 and was serving 10 years for supplying Class A drugs, committed when he was subject to a community sentence. The sentencing court found that he was at or near the top of the supply chain in his local town. He was first convicted aged 18 and subsequently on six separate occasions, mostly for burglary and possession of cannabis and heroin. Between the ages of 16 and 25 he used drugs regularly and offended to support his addictions. At the time he committed the offence of supply he said he had been clean of Class A drugs for some years but used cannabis to relax at the weekends.

Alan had been regularly drug-tested in prison and the tests were always negative. Until relatively recently he had maintained that he was but a small cog in a larger supply chain. He qualified for parole after five years but the first review panel found his risk remained too high to release him for the 20 month period when he would otherwise have been in custody. At his second review the panel noted that he had now fully admitted to the part he played in the offence, that he had completed a drug awareness course, and that he was to be released to a new area, away from old associates, to which his wife and family had since moved. His father-in-law had offered him employment. Report writers said that his long sentence had been salutary and that he had learnt his lesson and were unanimous that his risk could be managed on licence for the remaining 8 months. The panel awarded parole.

Please note that from July 2008 the Parole Board will only consider determinate sentence prisoners convicted of violent and sexual offences.

The Parole Board for England and Wales

Grenadier House, 99-105 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2DX

Telephone 0845 251 2220