C.15 In-person exchange of legal correspondence

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C.15.01 In-person exchange of legal correspondence general

  1. Legal advisers may visit a prison pursuant to [section 74 of the Corrections Act 2004]. When a legal adviser visits a prison, they are treated as per POM [V.01.Res.04 Prison visitor types] and are subject to usual prison entry screening requirements.

C.15.02 legal adviser may bring correspondence relating to prisoners’ legal affairs

  1. Legal advisers may bring legal correspondence relating to the prisoner’s legal affairs with them for the purpose of their visit, this correspondence should be processed as per POM [S.01.Res.02 Prison entry].
  2. When searching bags / briefcases or any other content that may contain legally privileged information, searching staff should take care that they do not read any correspondence that is related to a prisoner’s legal affairs.
    1. At times, the legal correspondence a legal adviser will bring into the prison may be of relatively small volume (i.e. up to one ream of A4 paper, approximately 5cm) and easy to process, i.e. an affidavit for review and signing by the prisoner, or a Provision of Advice to Court (PAC) report for review, or a small amount of disclosure material etc.
    2. Other times, the legal correspondence might be large in volume, (i.e. one or more boxes of legal correspondence or disclosure material). When there is a high volume of correspondence needing to be bought into the prison, the legal adviser must contact the prison ahead of time to advise that they are bringing a large amount of legal correspondence to their visit and the intended purpose. This allows the site to be prepared to receive large amounts of legal correspondence or provide an appropriate space for the prisoner to meet with their legal adviser to review the material.
    3. Once the legal adviser has met with the prisoner, they may wish to leave the legal correspondence with the prisoner. At this point, sites should follow their usual process for receiving in property or storing property.
  3. If a legal adviser visits a prison with large volumes of legal correspondence without following the process of informing the prison in advance, the prison staff must remind the legal adviser of the correct process of informing the prison site in advance, and prison staff may decline to process the correspondence if operationally unable to do so with no advance notice.
    1. If prison staff decline to process the legal correspondence, this should be left at the prison site and processed as physical legal mail as per the sites mail process which includes X-ray screening and detector dog if these tools are available. This should be delivered to the prisoner at the earliest opportunity.
    2. If prison staff approve entry of the legal correspondence for the visit, it can then be processed as normal as per POM [S.01.Res.02 Prison entry].