R (on the application of O’Dowd (aka Boy George)) v National Probation Service, London [2009] EWHC 3415 (Admin), [2010] All ER (D) 26 (Jan)
The proceedings concerned a challenge by the claimant, a well-known singer, songwriter and disc jockey known as “Boy George” to the decision of the Probation Service precluding him from participating in the television programme “Celebrity Big Brother”.
The court held that the unqualified obligation in s 2(2) of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 to have regard to the proper punishment of offenders applied to the management of offenders on licence. When considering what restrictions could properly be placed on offenders as incidents of supervision on licence, as part of a sentence of imprisonment, regard could be had to the expectations of right-thinking members of the democracy under whose laws a judge had imposed that sentence.
Those expectations were not to be discovered by reading editorials, articles or petitions in newspapers, whether broadsheet or tabloid. Right-thinking members of the public would take the view that an offender serving the non-custodial part
