Cash belonging to prisoner - prison rules requiring cash to be paid into account under prison governor's control - no trust imposed on governor

Duggan v Governor of Full Sutton Prison and another: CA (Lords Justice Peter Gibson, Chadwick and Keene): 10 February 2004

The claimant prisoner commenced proceedings for a declaration that any moneys of his which had been paid into an account under the control of the governor of his prison, pursuant to rule 43(3) of the Prison Rules 1999 (SI 1999/728), be held by either of the defendants, the governor and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on trust to pay the same to the claimant on his release and in the meantime to invest it in an interest-bearing account.

Mr Justice Hart ([2003] EWHC 361 (Ch); (see [2003] Gazette, 9 May, 34) dismissed the claim.

Stephen Smith QC and Leigh Sagar (instructed by AS Law, Liverpool) for the claimant; Jonathan Crow and Steven Kovats (instructed by Treasury Solicitor) for the defendants.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that the relevant question was whether the circumstances under which the cash was taken from the prisoner pursuant to rule 43(3) of the 1999 rules were such as in equity to impose a trust on the governor; that the passing of ownership carried with it both legal and beneficial rights unless there were something in the circumstances that should lead equity to impose a trust; that there was nothing in the language of rule 43(3), or, more generally, in the circumstances in which cash was taken from a prisoner under that rule, which should lead to the imposition of a trust on the monies when they came into the hands of the governor; and that, accordingly, no trust was imposed on the governor.