In the case of R (Richards) v Parole Board of England and Wales [2026] EWHC 394 (Admin), Mirren succeeded in challenging a no-release decision by the Parole Board and its subsequent reconsideration decision, which found against the Claimant.
In May 2025, the Parole Board concluded its review of the Claimant’s case and decided not to direct his release from prison. At two separate points in its decision, it referred to the Claimant’s licence automatically terminating after two years in the community. This was and is an impossibility; the Claimant is a life-sentenced prisoner and his licence cannot terminate.
The errors were brought to the Parole Board’s attention, which used rule 30(1) of the Parole Board Rules 2019, the slip rule, to remove one of them. The Claimant applied for reconsideration of the Parole Board’s decision, but his application was refused.
Mirren and her instructing solicitors, Andrew Sperling and Emma McClure of SL5 solicitors, brought a judicial review challenging the Parole Board’s unlawful use of the slip rule and its decision for material error of fact.
In a judgment that appears to be the first to consider the Parole Board’s use of the slip rule, Judge Barry Clarke held that the Parole Board’s error as to the Claimant’s sentence was not one “capable of correction via the slip rule” (§53), and the reconsideration decision erred in law in considering otherwise.
Having made that decision and so having upheld the Claimant’s first ground of challenge, Judge Clarke held that the decision suffered from material error of fact, applying the well-known test in E v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2004] 2 WLR 1351.
Judge Clarke quashed the Parole Board’s decision, the decision as amended using the slip rule, and the reconsideration decision and ordered the Claimant’s case to be heard by a differently constituted panel of the Parole Board on an expedited basis.
Mirren was instructed by Andrew Sperling and Emma McClure of SL5 solicitors and assisted by Yasmin Karabasic of SL5 solicitors