Thakrar v Secretary of State for Justice: Court of Appeal upholds lawfulness of long-term CSC segregation

The Court of Appeal has dismissed a wide-ranging challenge to the prolonged segregation of a life prisoner held within the Close Supervision Centre ("CSC") regime, confirming that a prisoner's sustained refusal to engage with mandatory psychological assessment processes can, in itself, provide sufficient justification for continued removal from association — even over an extended period.

Kevan Thakrar is serving a life sentence following convictions in 2008 for three murders and two attempted murders. He has remained within the CSC estate since 2010, when he seriously injured three prison staff at HMP Frankland. The judicial review challenged decisions made between April 2021 and July 2023 to keep him in a Designated Cell ("DC") — a form of segregation that removes a prisoner from association with other CSC prisoners — relying on grounds spanning Articles 3, 8 and 14 ECHR, alongside common law procedural fairness.

McGowan J dismissed the claim in February 2025 after a delay of more than 21 months from the hearing, which the Court of Appeal described as "highly regrettable." Permission to appeal was granted by Warby LJ on eight of nine grounds.

Common law grounds: reasons and review

The court rejected arguments that the CSC Management Committee ("CSCMC") had failed to review the appellant's segregation — as distinct from his broader placement within the CSC estate — at its monthly meetings. Reviewing the full sequence of minutes and reports from April 2021 to March 2023, the court found that consideration of a prisoner's DC location necessarily encompassed a review of their removal from association.

On the adequacy of reasons, the court held that the appellant had been given sufficient information throughout the process to understand the basis for his continued segregation. Weekly personal officer reports, monthly MDT reports disclosed in advance of each CSCMC meeting, quarterly Care and Management Plan reviews, and detailed letters setting out the pathway to progression collectively satisfied the Bourgass standard. The court noted that the appellant's non-engagement with the prison psychology service had been identified as the central obstacle from the outset, and that an intelligent man in his position could not have been in any doubt as to what was required of him.

Article 3

The court addressed a question as to the correct standard of proof, clarifying that the "beyond reasonable doubt" formulation referred to in Ocalon v Turkey and domestic authorities applies to factual findings, not to the legal question of whether established facts meet the minimum severity threshold for Article 3. Applying either the civil or criminal standard to the facts, the court found the treatment fell well short of that threshold. The regime, though restrictive, was not solitary confinement in the strict sense: the appellant maintained in-cell telephone access, averaging one hour and forty-four minutes of social calls per day, and continued to receive legal and family visits. No evidence of bad faith was made out.

Articles 8 and 14

On Article 8, the court accepted that the respondent had failed to constitute the CSCMC correctly on certain occasions — a concession made below — but went further to address the substantive proportionality question that McGowan J had left unresolved. Drawing on Shahid v Scottish Ministers [2015] UKSC 58, the court acknowledged that the justification required to maintain segregation increases with its duration; however, the evidence showed the MDT had made repeated attempts to engage the appellant on flexible terms, including cell-door consultations, written contact and alternative assessment arrangements, all of which he declined. His insistence on engagement solely on his own drafted terms did not impose a corresponding obligation on the respondent to capitulate to those conditions.

The Article 14 argument — that Rule 46 prisoners receive inferior procedural protections compared with those segregated under Rule 45 — was also rejected. Rule 46 requires the Secretary of State personally to authorise and review segregation on a monthly basis, representing a more frequent and senior level of scrutiny than the governor-level authorisations available under Rule 45.

The appeal was dismissed on all grounds.