A prisoner who brought a legal challenge in April 2023 alleging he had been held in solitary confinement in England for more than two years has said he remains in isolation 20 months later because the judge has not given her decision in the case.
Kevan Thakrar, who is serving a life sentence for murder and attempted murder after being convicted on a joint enterprise basis in October 2008, brought a judicial review against the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) claiming unlawful solitary confinement.
The case was heard at the high court in April 2023, when it was told that Thakrar was suicidal, having, at the time, spent 749 consecutive days – and five of the previous eight years – in a designated cell, totally isolated from other prisoners, within a high-security close supervision centre (CSC).
The delay in the judgment means he has spent more than 1,300 days consecutively in conditions which, his lawyer, Nick Armstrong KC, said at trial, entailed confinement to his cell for more than 22 hours a day and no association with other prisoners.
In 2021, the UN special rapporteur for torture said that conditions in CSCs were comparable to solitary confinement – although this characterisation was rejected by the UK government – which, when used for more than 15 days, amounted to torture (a definition contained in the “Mandela rules”).
In an emailed statement from his cell, Thakrar said: “Excessive delay has only further compounded the impact that this torture has had upon me and I cannot comprehend how such an obvious violation having been shown to the high court in extensive detail could take in excess of 20 months without a judgment coming through.
“Since May 2024 I have been in solitary confinement in the segregation unit of HMP Whitemoor with worse conditions than I suffered at HMP Belmarsh, which is only possible due to the delay with the judgment, and I have spent a total of 10 years of the past 15 years in solitary confinement at the very least with the rest of the time spent in small group isolation. We still have no indication of when the judgment will come.”
Thakrar said an official complaint had been lodged against the judge, Mrs Justice McGowan.
In a 2020 court of appeal case, Sir Geoffrey Vos described a 22-month delay between the end of a high court trial and judgment as “inexcusable”. He said judgment in civil cases should be given within three months “even in long and complex cases” to prevent loss of public confidence in the justice system.
Thakrar was originally placed in a CSC after he used force against prison officers at HMP Frankland in March 2010 and remained in such conditions, despite being acquitted at trial by a jury who accepted that his use of force against the officers was reasonable and lawful because he anticipated an assault on him.
Armstrong told the high court that it was alleged that Thakrar was disruptive when on a main CSC unit – not in solitary – even though, in November 2022, the MoJ paid damages to the practising Muslim for failing to protect him from racial and religiously motivated abuse and assaults by other CSC prisoners and failing to investigate such incidents.
Thakrar said: “Considering judgments must be delivered within three months and the judge said she would expedite it as she recognised the importance at the end of the hearing, clearly something illegitimate must be going on.”
His supporters have condemned the delay as “outrageous”.
A spokesperson said the judiciary could not comment on individual cases nor on complaints that may have been submitted.
