A black day for justice

Former York businessman Peter Holland, 42, was cleared of four charges of rape against a woman, and one of threatening to slash her face with a knife.

But his joy at being found not guilty was short-lived, when a judge ordered him back behind bars after a five-day trial.

He was returned to jail because the alleged sexual assaults occurred while he was on parole from an earlier sentence.

He now faces up to two months in jail while his solicitor appeals against the decision.

An expert said the case went against the "innocent until proven guilty" tradition.

Top justice campaigners also offered to help Holland fight his case.

Holland, a former security and debt collection boss, from Skewsby, near Easingwold, was on parole from a three-year sentence for arson when the alleged rapes occurred.

After his arrest, the Home Office revoked his prison licence and ordered he continue serving the sentence.

After the jury returned five "not guilty" verdicts, Holland's barrister, Benjamin Conlon, asked for him to be freed.

But Judge George Moorhouse said it was a matter for the Home Office, which must be told of the verdicts, and sent Holland back to jail.

A Home Office spokeswoman said they could not comment on individual cases.

Holland's solicitor is appealing, but the process would take weeks.

Dr Paul Mason, an expert in crime and punishment at Cardiff University, suggested Holland was a victim of the public frenzy over some criminals reoffending after being released on parole.

He said: "We have had a populist criminal justice system for some time now, where this Government has been keen to come out with high-profile, simplistic, spin-packaged, well-packaged bite-sized bits of legislation, which they can trumpet as being the next big thing for reducing crime."

Dr Mason added: "People are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. If someone is accused of a crime while on parole then until they are proven guilty of that crime it's wrong to assume guilt before the case has even gone to trial. That's the punitive environment in which we live."

A spokesman for human rights group Liberty said: "We cannot comment on specific cases without looking into the background of them. But if he Holland contacts us, we could well be able to take on and look at his case."

Amnesty International spokesman Steve Ballinger said they too may look at the case if Holland contacts them, but said it was not an issue on which they had done a lot of work.

William Higham, head of policy at the Prison Reform Trust, said: "We cannot comment on individual cases but every year some 50,000 people are remanded to custody ahead of their trial. Half are found innocent or sentenced to a non-custodial sentence.

"Remand prisoners account for half of all suicides in prison. They often spend most of their day locked up in their cell, they are the least prepared for release and not compensated in any way for a spell in prison that may well have lost them their job or their home."

Holland had denied four charges of rape and one of affray.

His business, HMS Ltd of Tadcaster Road, York, folded while he was serving 13 months of his original sentence for burning three cars in the Selby area.

At Teesside Crown Court his alleged victim claimed their relationship deteriorated after his release last June. He spent five months on an electronic tag and curfew.

She claimed that after the curfew finished, he forced her into sex four times. On one occasion he showed her a pornographic film beforehand.

In the last "rape" she claimed he grabbed her head back so hard she could not breathe and described him as "being in a frenzy".

She taped an argument between the two that was played to the jury.

Holland said she had always consented to sex with him, he had given her all she could want materially and she had been seeing other men. He said she liked "rough" sex.

The woman's teenage daughter gave evidence for the defence and blew a kiss at Holland in the dock as she left the witness stand. She later sat in the public gallery with her father, the woman's ex-husband, who also gave evidence on behalf of Holland. With them was a third defence witness, Debbie Jackson.

Holland had spent the day at her house repairing a leak before his arrest that evening.

The Home Office's guidelines on prison sentences

According to the Home Office this is the procedure for how prisoners serve sentences longer than a year:

- Sentences are partly served in prison and partly in the community under probation service supervision

- The Parole Board (part of the Home Office) sets conditions on the prisoner's release about what he or she can and cannot do

- Standard conditions include living at a set address, not taking paid work without probation service approval, being well-behaved and not committing further offences

- Other conditions can be added depending on how probation officers assess the prisoner's propensity to commit crimes

- The board can recall the prisoner to serve the remainder of the sentence if he or she breaks one or more of the release conditions. A judge can recall the prisoner if he or she is convicted of a new crime.

Abolition of all prisons is 'the way forward'

Dr Paul Mason is an expert in crime and punishment at Cardiff University, editor of the Journal For Crime, Conflict And Media Culture, and a founder member of the No More Prison pressure group, which calls for the abolition of prisons as a sentencing tool.

He said: "The No More Prison group is relatively new, and we are set up to challenge the whole nature of prison. We are a prison abolition group, made up of academics, people who work in prisons and some ex-offenders as well.

"We want to bring to the public attention that prison is not something that works - it's a brutal and abusive place that just commits damage to people.

"Prison has been normalised as a form of punishment.

"We are committed to its abolition and think it's fundamentally flawed."

Dr Mason acknowledges his views are opposed by many, due to fears over high-profile prisoners, such as murderers and rapists. But he says they are a very small minority of inmates.

He said: "Yes, we have to do something with people who are a danger to society, and those people need to be treated for the clear mental problems and psychological difficulties they have.

"But what we would not do is put them in a cell every day for 20 years and hope that would deter people. The idea that prison works is a myth.

"Yes, there are some people who are a danger to society, and we would probably expect to have a handful of people who would remain in a secure place undergoing forms of treatment and having to face up to what they have done.

"But the idea that the argument over prison should start with the rapists and serial killers is wrong."

Views from the House

The region's MPs also voiced concerns over issues raised by the case.

Labour Selby MP John Grogan said: "I think what the public wants to see is that the guilty pay fully for their crimes, but the innocent be exonerated by our judicial system. There really can be no half way house and, although this case does involve someone who has in the past been convicted of a serious offence, it does raise some important questions."

Tory MP for Ryedale John Greenway said: "It would be wrong to comment on this

particular case, but I do think the public's confidence in the system of assessment before people are released needs to be restored because in recent months there have been a lot of appalling crimes committed when people have been released on licence."

Labour MP for the City of York, Hugh Bayley, declined to comment without having prior knowledge of the case, while Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP for the Vale of York, was unavailable.

Updated: 15:36 Tuesday, April 18, 2006