BLIND JUSTICE

Justice secretary acted unlawfully and "contrary to good administration"

A man serving a life sentence for a double murder has won a High Court victory to allow him to have cosmetic surgery on the NHS.
Denis Harland Roberts, 59, currently in a Durham jail for killing an elderly couple in East Sussex in 1989, will now have treatment to remove a birthmark.
The case may mean other inmates are considered for similar treatments.

An undisclosed policy operated by Justice Secretary Jack Straw had restricted non-urgent inmate treatment.
This included cosmetic surgery.
But Roberts' publicly-funded legal challenge led to the previously-undisclosed policy being revealed in full for the first time last week.
It operated despite the government publicly stating that prisoners were entitled to the same NHS treatment as the rest of the population.

On Wednesday, London's High Court declared that the justice secretary acted unlawfully and "contrary to good administration" in failing to disclose his full policy on medical appointments.
Roberts, who is a Category A prisoner, was represented in court by barrister Adam Straw - the justice secretary's nephew.