Minister agrees to days out for serial killer

The justice minister now accepts a recommendation that the State’s longest-serving prisoner — serial killer John Shaw — be granted two days of escorted temporary release per year, the Court of Appeal has been told.

The court also heard that Shaw’s lawyers needlessly spent half a day arguing the minister’s initial refusal was “unjust”, as they never checked their emails to learn the decision had already been reversed.

Shaw’s case has been the subject of a number of reviews, first by the Sentence Review Group and subsequently the Parole Board.

In April 2016, the Prison Review Committee noted Shaw, 73, was “very frustrated that he has never got a day out of prison in his 38 years in custody… He has no family in Ireland and has only received one family visit over the course of his sentence.”

The Parole Board recommended Shaw be granted two days of escorted outings per year, but in a letter dated November 29, 2016, the justice minister refused the recommendation, which was subsequently challenged by Shaw’s lawyers through the courts.

During a half-day hearing in January, Shaw’s counsel asked the Court of Appeal to quash the minister’s decision on grounds that “no reasons” were given for refusing him temporary release.

However, neither Shaw’s senior counsel nor junior counsel had read their emails in which they would have learned that the minister had reversed the decision on the recommendation for temporary release.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said it was “not satisfactory” that the decision to accept the recommendation in a letter sent to Shaw on December 9, 2019, was not communicated to his lawyers until the morning of the hearing on January 14.

He said it was a “serious thing” that the case “proceeded to full hearing in this court in circumstances where it was in fact moot”.