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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Alami & Anor v Health and Care Professions Council & Anor [2013] EWHC 1895 (Admin) (10 July 2013) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2013/1895.html Cite as: [2013] EWHC 1895 (Admin) |
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QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL |
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B e f o r e :
____________________
Samar Alami & Jawad Botmeh |
Claimant |
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- and - |
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Health and Care Professions Council |
Defendant |
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- and - |
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Dr Susan Young |
Interested Party |
____________________
Ms Jenni Richards Q.C. (instructed by Birchem Dyson Bell LLP, Solicitors) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 18 & 19 June 2013
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
Mr Justice Collins :
" left with the impression from a range of distinguished experts with varied expertise and experience that the psychology profession accepts that risk assessment of politically motivated offenders presents a unique problem, for the resolution of which they still seek an answer."
The panel also considered that the experts should have considered the possibility that the offences were not politically motivated. That was perhaps a surprising view to have taken since it was apparent from Garland J's remarks and the evidence given in the trial that this was regarded as a politically motivated offence. Further, as Dr Young's reports made clear, there was no history of violent behaviour by either claimant either before or since the offending behaviour. The panel concluded that it would not recommend early release for either claimant.
"(5) If on the day before the appointed day for practitioner psychologists a person's name is included in the BPS register but
(b) the person is the subject of proceedings which could lead to the person's removal or suspension from the BPS register Paragraph (6) applies.
(6) In the circumstances described in Paragraph (5), the HPC
(a) may determine that the person's name is not to be entered in the part of the HPC register which relates to practitioner psychologists and
(b) shall dispose of the matter (including any proceedings) in such manner as it considers just."
"As agreed with the Home Office, I have reviewed the documents and discussed this assessment with my colleague, Professor Gisli Gudjonsson, Head of Southwark Forensic Psychology Services, South London Maudsley NHS Trust. In view of Professor Gudjonsson's extensive experience in terrorist behaviour he agreed to act as a supervisor for the work carried out. He has provided constructive feedback and has read this report."
In the light of the criticism levelled at Dr Young, the support given to her by Professor Gudjonsson is of considerable importance. In a letter of 17 October 2006 to the defendant, he stated:-
"Having carefully supervised Dr Young's work in this case I know that she approached this case with objectivity and scientific vigour."
Professor Gudjonsson made a witness statement dated 19 February 2008 in which he gives wholehearted support to the manner in which Dr Young carried out her task and to the reports she produced.
" should be restricted mainly to settings in which there is a high proportion of persons with a history of violence and a strong suggestion of mental illness or personality disorder Although the principles and methods have limited applicability to their settings, the authors urge caution in the use of this manual."
He does not suggest that it can have no relevance in terrorist cases, but it should only be used (if at all) as a general framework for structuring evaluations of risk for terrorist violence. He makes the point that HCR-20 did not discuss terrorist violence, 'a topic that is outside the expertise of most mental health professionals.'
"I am currently doing an HCR on a convicted (female) terrorist due for parole. It's a bit political and I will have to justify every step I take. It's tricky because in cases like this it is a question of instrumental violence due to political beliefs and ideology. I was thinking of putting past political activity/beliefs etc in the 'other H factors'. I do not intend to present scores in the report or even risk categories. However I am using the HCR to structure the report in a meaningful way. The HCR will be just the component of the assessment and overall conclusion. I will, however, keep separately a note of scores as I may of course have to refer to them/justify them and my conclusions at a later stage at a review. My question is that if you were to look at scores when you use the other H factors' category, would you add the score(s) for the additional items to the total (even though it/they were additional factor(s) or just use the item(s) to descriptively describe the area of risk that you wish to draw the readers attention to "
Professor Hart replied later the same day:-
"We typically would code political beliefs that support or condone the use of violence under "Negative Attitudes" (C2). The advantage of this is that the C factors are dynamic, and you can then talk about evidence concerning whether the Negative Attitudes are still present and relevant.
An additional concern is whether the person associates with others who hold attitudes that support or condone violence regardless of "his" current attitudes. It would be easy to consider 'antisocial peers' or 'negative peers' as part of a broader risk factor, "Non-intimate relationship problems" and code this under 'Other H factors'.
With respect to the remaining issues, I typically don't add up the numbers, even for research purposes (instead I focus on ratings if the presence and relevance of individual risk factors and on the summary risk rating). If you do add up numbers then I would "not" add in 'other factors' as this will make the scores non-comparable across individuals."
"There are no actuarial risk assessment tools available that have been developed specifically for those involved in offences of terrorism. Actuarial risk assessments tools exist that have been developed for those involved in non-specific violent offences (e.g. the HCR-20), although these do not include risk factors which are likely to be relevant for individuals who are motivated to conduct violent acts for political reasons and based on political beliefs. The HCR-20 is increasingly becoming recognised to be the international 'gold-standard' risk assessment for evaluating violence and research studies have demonstrated that it has a high standard of predictive validity. The HCR-20 was developed based on the acknowledgement that it is extremely difficult to accurately assess the potential for future violent acts and items in the HCR-20 were selected that bear some relationship to violence. For the purposes of assessing risk in [the claimant], the HCR-20 protocol was therefore adopted. However, in order to include additional aspects of risk that are likely to be important and relevant for those involved in terrorist offences, in addition to the ten classic historical factors, two additional factors were added relating to political ideology and activity that condones violence, and non-intimate relationship problems."
"The HCR-20 highlighted several areas of concerns from historical, current and future perspectives which suggest that there is a moderate to high risk that Ms Alami will engage in acts of terrorism in the future. The current assessment suggest that the risk has not decreased since the time of her conviction. "
"Dr Young has used this protocol to structure her thinking and that does not seem inappropriate to me. She has not used the associated scoring mechanism, and she has added her own items. This clearly indicates that she does not intend the tool to be used for actuarial purposes. This is appropriate as there is insufficient data to conclude that the items, which bear some statistical relationship to violence and which Dr Young has therefore included in the HCR-20, will necessarily be relevant to assessing risk of terrorist violence, nor is the statistical evidence linking her additional items to terrorist recidivism. Appropriately Dr Young does not seek to score the HCR-20, however the reader must be cautious not to assume that a link necessarily exists between the items she has chosen to explore and recidivistic terrorist behaviour."
Her view was that while the approach adopted by Dr Young had a number of strengths, it was highly structured and carefully mapped, she believed undue emphasis had been placed on tests relying on statistical data which was not available in a relevant population. There was a need for greater understanding of Ms Alami's views in the context of the political landscape in the Middle East. However, Dr Beck's report did not suggest that Dr Young had acted in a way which was inappropriate in the production of her reports.
"Dr Young's report does not make any reference to this literature, or to the wider literature on the psychology of politically motivated offenders. The report does not highlight his potential problems in applying the selected tests to politically motivated offenders. On p 25 of the report, Dr Young acknowledges that there are no assessment tools available specifically for offenders involved in terrorism. There are no caveats however in the report to warn about the potential problems in applying the measures which were solicited for use with Mr Botmeh."
"Dr Young did not understand what led the subject to commit the original crime and she could not sensibly comment on what would need to change in order for the risk of repetition to be ameliorated or indeed whether such change had occurred. Furthermore there is a good chance that someone familiar with the wider systems within which the subject operated might have reached another, very different, conclusion. "
"It is our opinion that Dr Young approached her assessment in a thorough and appropriate manner for a general forensic assessment of risk, but that the lack of empirical studies regarding risk and terrorist activity will have compromised the conclusions drawn. There are no risk assessment tools for people convicted of terrorist activities and it is unacceptable to assume that when this is the case, then tools which have not been validated against this population are an appropriate form of assessment. The current climate of concern about terrorism and acts of violence may bias judgments made about dangerousness and result in an overestimation of risk. The decontextualisation of the assessment from knowledge about terrorist behaviour may be problematic and ultimately lead to confusion between ideology and behaviour. Such errors are evident in Dr Young's report. It is acknowledged that the present report is not the result of interviews with, or an assessment of, Ms Alami and it may appear that the information presented remains academic. We believe, however, that the issues raised are important and worthy of further consideration in the light of the consequences of the risk assessment process for Ms Alami."
Thus they do not really add anything of significance to the other reports obtained by the claimants' solicitors.
"The debate seems to centre on the appropriate use and usefulness of applying existing risk assessment tools (HCR-20 and MCM1-11) to politically motivated violent offenders."
This is an inaccurate indication of the issue and the committee was notified of Dr Young's acknowledgement that there were no actuarial risk assessment tools available that had been developed specifically for those involved in terrorist offences. MCM1-11 I have not dealt with separately since the real concentration has been on HCR-20. MCM1-11 was used to see whether there was any mental illness or personality disorder. It was said by Dr Young to show a personality disorder in Ms Alami but no abnormalities in Mr Botmeh. Her use of it has been criticised but not to the same extent as her use of HCR-20 coupled with her lack of knowledge or experience of terrorists generally and those concerned with the Palestinian/Israeli situation in particular.
"(i) You have no expertise in, or experience of assessing risk in politically motivated offenders and/or terrorist offenders
(ii) You have limited understanding of the political, social, cultural and historical factors, which were relevant
(iii) You failed to acknowledge the limitations in your knowledge of dealing with politically motivated offenders in that you failed to consult with appropriate experts when performing your assessments "
The committee, having noted Dr Young's limited experience, was satisfied that she had fully acknowledged the limitations of her knowledge and had sought appropriate supervision from Professor Gudjonsson and Professor Hart. She had not sought nor had she received supervision from Professor Hart albeit she had sought his advice in the e-mail of 11 July 2005. However, the committee was entitled in my view to rely heavily on Dr Young's involvement of Professor Gudjonsson who did have relevant expertise and who approved the reports which she produced. Further, she, as the committee said, had significant experience in assessing risk of violence. But the committee said that that experience was relevant. That can properly be criticised since the whole point was that she did not have experience in dealing with terrorist offenders.
"Dr Young states in her reports that "there are no actuarial risk assessment tools Dr Young declared the limitations of her approach and findings in her reports. Therefore there is no case to answer."
Since this Particular was directed at an alleged failure to declare the specified matters, the recognition by Dr Young expressed in the reports that there were no actuarial risk assessment tools designed to deal with terrorist offenders was an answer. In effect, the committee did not regard it as misconduct for her not explicitly to have stated what was implicit in her acknowledgment of the absence of any tools, including those she used, to make an actuarial assessment of risk.