‘Limbs in the Loch’ murderer granted judicial review over opening of letters

The so-called “Limbs in the Loch” murderer William Beggs is seeking £5,000 damages from the Scottish Ministers over the “unlawful” opening of his personal correspondence, and a judge in the Court of Session allowed his application for judicial review to proceed.

Lord Doherty heard that Beggs, 53, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 with a punishment part of 20 years after being found guilty of the murder of18-year-old Barry Wallace in 1999, alleges that staff at HMP Edinburgh staff “interfered” with certain items of his correspondence by opening it and breached an undertaking given to him.

Legitimate expectation

Beggs, who dismembered his victim’s body before discarding the limbs and torso in Loch Lomond and disposing of his head by throwing it into the sea off the Ayrshire coast, also seeks declarator that the respondents’ refusal to include prisoners’ correspondence with the regulators of the legal professions of the United Kingdom other than the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates, and legal complaints bodies other than the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as “confidential non-privileged correspondence” within their policy is “unlawful”.

Further, he claims that a Scottish Prison Service manager promised him they would treat correspondence between him and the Health Care Professional Council as being “privileged”.

The petitioner averred that the opening of HCPC correspondence after the undertaking was given was “unlawful at common law” because he had a “legitimate expectation” that SPS would adhere to the undertaking.

He further averred that the opening of his correspondence with HCPC and the Law Society of England and Wales and the Solicitors Regulation Authority were interferences with his right to respect for his private correspondence under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which were “not justified” by any of the considerations in article 8.2.

In accordance with law

However, the respondents averred that the petitioner did not have a legitimate expectation that his correspondence with HCPC would be treated as privileged and that it was “perfectly plain” that the undertaking given was only on a “temporary basis”.

It was also submitted that prison security was an “important consideration” and that there was a “significant risk of abuse” of the confidential mail system.

The respondents argued that there had been no violation of article 8, as the opening of the petitioner’s correspondence had been “in accordance with the law”, authorised in terms of rules.

The respondents, it was said, had been pursuing “legitimate aims”, the “prevention of disorder and crime” and the “protection of the rights and freedoms of others” and they had acted “proportionately”.

Judicial review

The court held that Beggs’ article 8 rights had not been breached, but the judge did allow the application to proceed – albeit to a limited extent.

In a written opinion, Lord Doherty said: “I do not think there is a real prospect of the petitioner establishing a violation of article 8…On the matter in issue, I see no real prospect of the court concluding that the rules do not strike a fair balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of the community, or of it holding that the degree of interference here was more than necessary to pursue the respondents’ legitimate aims.

“I grant permission for the application to proceed but only upon the following grounds: (i) in so far as it is contended that the opening of the HCPC correspondence on 6 May 2016 was unlawful because it was in breach of the petitioner’s legitimate expectation that such correspondence would be treated as privileged; (ii) in so far as it is contended that the non-designation of correspondence between prisoners and regulatory bodies of the legal professions in other parts of the United Kingdom as confidential is irrational.”