Background
Andrew Harvey was convicted in 1998 of murdering his stepdaughter and received a mandatory life sentence with a 17-year minimum term. He appealed his conviction (rejected in 2002), admitted guilt that same year, but retracted the admission months later and maintained innocence for the next 24 years. In April 2025, the Parole Board held an oral hearing to consider his application for transfer to open prison conditions, hearing evidence from Harvey, his prison offender manager, community offender manager, and a forensic psychologist. All professionals recommended transfer, and the Board concluded Harvey had made sufficient progress in addressing his risk and recommended the move.
On 18 June 2025, the Secretary of State rejected the Parole Board’s recommendation. The decision emphasized Harvey’s maintenance of innocence and, crucially, interpreted his expressed “feelings of guilt” about his stepdaughter’s death as evidence of an inconsistent stance, treating these feelings as implicit admissions of the crime. The SoS determined that Harvey should remain in closed conditions for further psychological work exploring his “inconsistent stance of innocence.”
The Court’s Holding
Justice Jarman KC quashed the SoS’s decision as unreasonable in law. The court found the SoS had made an unreasonable factual interpretation by construing Harvey’s expressions of guilt and remorse as admissions that he committed the crime. When Harvey stated he felt guilty because “if I hadn’t met [the victim’s mother], we wouldn’t have been living in married quarters where the offence occurred,” the SoS interpreted this as Harvey admitting that if he had died in the army, he would not have been able to commit murder. This interpretation was not suggested by any expert or the Parole Board, was never put to Harvey at the hearing, and ignored his explanation that he harbored similar guilt feelings over a fellow soldier’s death in Bosnia—a case involving no culpability on his part.
The court held the SoS had failed to give proper weight to the Parole Board’s assessment of Harvey’s credibility and risk, particularly following its oral hearing where the Board heard from multiple professionals unanimously recommending transfer. The decision also failed to engage meaningfully with expert evidence that Harvey had completed all available risk-reduction work in closed conditions and that even if he admitted guilt, no additional work would be recommended. By repeatedly highlighting the “inconsistencies” between Harvey’s maintenance of innocence and his expressions of guilt—and by basing the refusal substantially on this unreasonable characterization—the SoS’s decision was not properly balanced and could not stand.
Key Takeaways
- Expressions of guilt or remorse cannot reasonably be equated with admissions of guilt for parole purposes, particularly where the person maintains innocence consistent with their legal conviction.
- The Secretary of State must accord substantial weight to Parole Board findings made after oral hearings, especially credibility assessments and professional expert opinions; departing from such findings requires sound reasoning within the range of reasonable decisions.
- Decision-makers cannot impose further work or require “exploration” of issues when independent experts have unanimously concluded that no further risk-reduction work is available or necessary.
- Maintenance of innocence need not be an absolute bar to prison progression, but any concerns about it must be addressed through reasonable interpretation and fair consideration of the individual’s explanations.
Why It Matters
This judgment clarifies the limits of the Secretary of State’s authority under the statutory parole framework. While the Court of Appeal’s decision in Sneddon confirmed the SoS is not bound by Parole Board recommendations, Harvey establishes that departing from expert advice—particularly credibility assessments and risk assessments made after oral hearings—must be rational and reasoned. The court rejected any suggestion that the SoS may reinterpret expressions of remorse as implicit confessions or treat ambiguous statements as “inconsistencies” without robust factual foundation or engagement with the individual’s actual explanations.
The case is particularly significant for indeterminate sentence prisoners who maintain innocence throughout their sentences. It confirms that such prisoners need not confess or change their legal position regarding conviction to progress through the prison estate, provided their risk has genuinely been reduced through engagement with rehabilitation programs and behavioral evidence. The decision reinforces that judicial review scrutiny applies to parole decisions that depart from unanimous expert recommendations based on strained interpretations of the evidence.
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