Alex Belfield - We will ALL Find Out!

[00:00:00]If you've been following the Alex Belfield case and his recall to prison, there's a very interesting legal development that I'd like to talk to you about in this video because you may or may not have seen one or two headlines suggesting that his parole hearing may be heard in public. Now, there's a number of different interesting things about this that I'd like to talk to you about in this video. Because first of all, some people might immediately assume one or two things about this news. Firstly, they might assume that the parole board has decided that he should be released, which is not the case.

[00:00:31]Some people might have assumed that the board has decided that his recall to prison was lawful, but it hasn't done that, either. In fact, there's a seven-page decision notice, which I'm going to come to in a moment, which decides actually neither of those things. Instead, it answers a very different question. But very specifically, it is whether the public should be allowed to watch this parole hearing at all. Now, this might sound like a procedural issue, some routine administrative thing, but it raises some very fascinating questions about the transparency of justice, victims' rights, and public confidence and open justice. So, today, let's look at this parole board decision, what they've actually decided, and what are these interesting issues that it raises. So, first of all, if you're new to my channel, I am Daniel Shensmith, a barrister of England and Wales. I love talking to you about law and news developments and things of that nature.

[00:01:26]If that interests you, please do subscribe to the channel. I'd be very grateful to you for doing so. So, a very brief background for those of you who are not familiar with the case. Alex Belfield was convicted in 2022 of four counts of stalking committed over a 10-year period. This was through emails, social media posts, and YouTube videos.

[00:01:44]It wasn't the traditional, as you might think of it, kind of stalking whereby you turn up at somebody's house and follow them around and that sort of thing. It wasn't that. It was more a digital form.

[00:01:54]For this, he received a total determinate sentence of 66 months imprisonment. That's 5 and 1/2 years.

[00:02:02]He was automatically released on license on the 12th of June 2025.

[00:02:07]However, his license was then revoked in February this year and he was returned to prison.

[00:02:14]This decision explains that the recall followed what it described as an accumulation of professional concerns over an extended period concerning Mr. Belfield's use of a computer, the internet and email, which was said to undermine the purpose of the probation supervision.

[00:02:32]Mr. Belfield disputes both the recall itself and the allegation that he's breached his license conditions. Those issues have not yet been decided. The parole board hasn't even allocated a panel or a fixed hearing date yet.

[00:02:47]This decision is solely about whether the future parole hearing should take place in public.

[00:02:53]>> [snorts] >> So, why is this unusual, you might ask?

[00:02:57]Because parole hearings are almost always in private.

[00:03:01]The parole board explains that witnesses often need to give evidence about highly personal matters, psychological reports may need to be discussed, medical information might be considered and victims may well be referred to in some detail.

[00:03:18]The board here says privacy is therefore the norm, the normal position. And a public hearing is, by contrast, the exception.

[00:03:28]In fact, the judge here describes the legal threshold as a very high bar, requiring it to be in the interests of justice before a hearing will be opened up to the public. That is why this is so very interesting.

[00:03:42]And so, therefore, you might ask, why is this case so different? Now, if you've watched my channel for any length of time, you'll know that since I started this channel 6 years ago, I've done everything I can to try to keep you safe from scams, spam, identity theft, and at the heart of all of that is your privacy, your personal information.

[00:04:02]Because whether it's a government system, a police database, or a large corporation, one thing that comes up again and again is that your data is everywhere. And very often you have very little control over how it's used, how it's stored, who it's shared with, and even who sees this data of yours. Now, most people don't think twice when it comes to email. You sign up for an email, you assume that it's private and secure, and you use it every day. You put everything into your email. But what people don't realize is that many email service providers are not necessarily built with privacy at its heart and its first priority.

[00:04:40]And that's really important because your email is where everything sits. All of your information ends up in your email.

[00:04:47]From legal documents, financial details, personal conversations, literally everything ends up in your email. And that is where a partner to my channel comes in, which is ProtonMail, which has end-to-end encryption with zero-access encryption, which means that only you can access your emails. There are no ads, there are no trackers, no scanning of your inbox, and importantly, it blocks all of these invisible tracking pixels, which are tiny little bits of tracking data and code. There's none of those. These are little bits of information that companies hide inside their emails that monitor when you open it and what you do with it. So, it's not just about privacy, but it is a lot safer. And despite all of that, it's completely free, and switching to ProtonMail is very straightforward. You can import your existing emails, forward everything across, and just start a fresh with a new email address. So, if you take this simple step towards protecting your data, switch your email.

[00:05:49]You can use my link proton.me/blackbeltbarrister and sign up for a free account today.

[00:05:55]There's a link in the description. It literally takes a couple of minutes and once you've done it, you will realize just how much you were potentially giving away before. So, check out the link in the description below. It's completely free. Why was a public hearing even considered in the case like this, you might ask.

[00:06:12]Well, the chair of the parole board has identified several reasons why this case should be considered for a public hearing.

[00:06:18]The offending was carried out entirely online.

[00:06:23]Most of the victims were complete strangers selected because of their online presence.

[00:06:29]The circumstances surrounding Mr. Bellfield's recall are described as being complex.

[00:06:35]The use and misuse of internet communications is in and of itself a matter of significant public debate, especially recently. And so, you can see now how it might fit into the transparency, uh freedom of speech, and all of these kind of things. They all kind of fit together.

[00:06:53]And perhaps more importantly, the chair considered that the public confidence in the parole board would be assisted if the decision-making process could be scrutinized openly in public.

[00:07:07]That didn't mean that a public hearing would automatically follow.

[00:07:11]The board still had to hear major arguments from both sides as you would expect any court hearing to do.

[00:07:19]So, why did some people oppose it and why did people support it? Now, interestingly, Mr. Bellfield himself supported the application.

[00:07:30]The Secretary of State, however, did not. Although accepting of the fact that transparency is important, the Secretary of State strongly opposed a a hearing in this case because one of the victims feared that the additional publicity would have a significant detrimental impact on their well-being.

[00:07:49]Another victim described suffering years of online abuse, warned that weaponization of digital media, and expressed concern that Mr. Bellfield was attempting to portray himself as a speech free speech martyr. The investigating police officer also opposed a public hearing, expressing concerns that it could re-traumatize victims, stating the view that Mr. Bellfield had never accepted responsibility for his offending.

[00:08:15]So, there are some plainly very serious concerns here.

[00:08:18]The judge repeatedly acknowledges that they deserve considerable weight. So, why did the judge still grant it? This is where the decision becomes particularly interesting, and I'll come to the decision in just a moment.

[00:08:32]The judge accepted that the original offending forms an important backdrop, but he concluded that the hearing itself was likely to concentrate on something very different, namely what happened after Mr. Bellfield's release on license.

[00:08:49]How did he behave in the community? Why was he recalled? And was that recall appropriate?

[00:08:57]Those are the issues that the panel is expected to focus upon. The judge also noted that there is no suggestion before him that Mr. Bellfield had contacted any victim directly in breach of his license conditions. Accordingly, there should be no need for victims themselves to participate in the hearing, and the panel has powers to protect anonymity wherever necessary. So, an obvious question that follows all of this is, could this simply become a platform of some sort?

[00:09:27]One argument put before the board was that a public hearing could simply provide Mr. Bellfield with another public platform from which to portray himself as a victim of some sort of conspiracy.

[00:09:38]The judge clearly took that concern very seriously.

[00:09:42]But he reached an interesting conclusion. He said that the answer wasn't necessarily to keep the hearing private. Instead, the panel chair has ample powers to control proceedings and ensure that any evidence remains confined to the issues relevant to parole.

[00:10:00]In other words, open justice doesn't mean an unrestricted public platform.

[00:10:06]It means a properly managed public proceeding. And perhaps the most interesting part of this decision, and for me the probably the most important part, comes towards the end. The judge explains why transparency matters so much here.

[00:10:23]He says the public should have the opportunity to observe how the parole board considers a recall from a determinate sentence, how license conditions operate, how psychological evidence is assessed, how the risk is evaluated, and crucially, even if the panel were to ultimately conclude that the recall itself was inappropriate, that would not be the end of the matter.

[00:10:49]The panel would still have to carry out its own independent assessment as to whether Mr. Belfield currently satisfies the statutory test for release into the community.

[00:11:00]That is something that many people probably don't appreciate in full, at least. A finding that a recall was inappropriate does not automatically result in release.

[00:11:11]The board has still an entirely separate statutory duty to assess future and ongoing risk.

[00:11:19]Finally, the judge also said that there's already been considerable media interest in this case, and that future reporting will be better informed if the hearing itself were to take place in public.

[00:11:32]After all, I'm doing videos on this as well because I find this a very interesting twist and quirk in the legal process and the transparency of justice, and I'm a believer in transparency of justice, and I do believe that notwithstanding risks and all of the panel's comments here, and that victims should be protected and so on and so forth, that ultimately justice should be public and transparent. Even to an extent in family cases, and I'll make comments about that in other videos.

[00:12:01]But, the judge also concluded that transparency, accountability, and public confidence are all served by allowing the public to observe how the board reaches its decision. And so, a mini conclusion before I show you the document itself and have a quick look through that with you, this decision, most importantly, does not tell us whether Alex Belfield will be released.

[00:12:24]It does not determine whether his recall was justified. Those issues remain open for decision another day.

[00:12:32]What it does decide is that this is one of those rare cases where the interests of justice favor public scrutiny over private proceedings. Whether you support Alex Belfield or not, whether you support the victims or not, or whether you simply have an interest in how the justice system works, this decision is a rare opportunity to see the Parole Board carrying out one of the most important functions in public. For everybody to see. And from a constitutional perspective, that in itself is a significant and interesting development.

[00:13:09]And so, as always, I'd be keen to hear your views. But, before we finish, let's move to that document and have a very quick look through it. So, as you can see here, this document, as many of them often do, gives you the outcome right at the beginning. That is that the application for a public hearing has been granted. Then it goes through some background information with you. The parole board is an independent body which acts as a court when deciding whether prisoners in England and Wales are safe to be released or not and makes recommendations to the Secretary of State on prisoners suitability for open conditions if the release test has not been met. That just means open conditions in prison if the release into the public has not been met.

[00:13:50]Prisoners are referred to the parole board only after they've served the minimum period for punishment set by the sentencing judge. This is the tariff.

[00:13:58]When considering a case, the parole board's role is to consider whether a prisoner's risk can be safely managed in the community. This is the test set out in the relevant legislation. The parole board will not direct release of a prisoner unless it is satisfied that their risk can be managed. Public protection is always the parole board's primary concern. The document then goes on to discuss some background details of the case. Those are that on the 16th of September, Mr. Belfield received determinate sentences totaling 66 months imprisonment for four counts of stalking committed between 2011 and 2021. Two counts were of stalking involving serious alarm or distress and two counts were of stalking without serious alarm or distress. All offending was carried out by electronic and online means including emails, social media posts, and YouTube videos. And this for one was one of the reasons a lot of people felt that this case was quite an extraordinary and exceptional case in that the sentences for each of these offenses were to run consecutively rather than concurrently. In other words, they run one after another rather than all at the same time, which would ordinarily be the case. But in this case, the judge decided that this offending was so serious that they needed to run consecutively one after another, thus extending the sentence, which is why it was 5 and 1/2 years. But then we come to some dates here which makes this so serious because since the recall to prison, if a decision is not made that he should be released, the sentence expiry date is March 2028.

[00:15:29]He was released, however, automatically on license subject to stringent conditions on the 12th of June. And his license was revoked on the 16th of February 2026, and he was returned to prison the next day. Many of you may have seen that in the news. As you can see, Mr. Belfield challenges the appropriateness of his recall and disputes that he breached his license conditions.

[00:15:51]This is the first review by the parole board of this case, which has been directed to an oral hearing. No panel's yet been assigned, and no hearing date has been fixed. But as I said, the most significant and the most interesting thing here is the decision and the reasons for the decision to hold this hearing in public. And they are discussed here, which you can find this document online. At paragraph 33, addressing the concern that Mr. Belfield might seek to use this as a platform to portray himself as a martyr and a victim conspiracy, the judge said, "I also fully appreciate the point made by the victim and also by the police officer that in holding a public hearing, Mr. Belfield could be afforded a platform from which to portray himself as such.

[00:16:34]In this regard, I'm satisfied that should he seek to do so, the panel chair will have sufficient powers to ensure, with the assistance of counsel, that while being afforded a fair hearing, his evidence, should he choose to speak to the panel, will be confined to the issues relevant to the panel's considerations. Set against these justifiable concerns, I find that there are compelling reasons for directing the matter to a public hearing as follows."

[00:16:58]And here are the very interesting points made by the judge because at paragraph 36, the offenses were committed online and the use and misuse of internet communications, websites, and widely used applications are currently the subject of considerable public debate and concern. And so in other words, because these offenses were exclusively electronic in nature and done online, the judge is effectively saying that with that in mind, it is in the public interest that there's an opportunity to observe how a panel in a case such as this approaches these issues in this case and in particular, at paragraph 39, the question of appropriateness of the recall, which will require the detailed consideration of Mr. Belfield's behavior when on license and his compliance with or otherwise with his license conditions. And so, a panel will be convened, a date will be decided, the hearing itself will take place with the parties, the panel, and the witnesses together at a secure location. However, arrangements will be made for members of the public to view the hearing remotely at a place where they'll be able to more easily attend. And a bit of a warning from me on that point with as with any remote hearing of of any nature, really, there there will be a detailed instructions and warnings such as, you know, no recordings to be made and all that sort of stuff. So, do look out for those if you do plan on listening into this hearing, make sure you follow any detailed guidelines and instructions that follow.

[00:18:27]But, I thought this was a very interesting case because these offenses were committed online and then people have questioned the recall and the appropriateness. So, the panel will address these things and it will do so in public. So, as the saying goes, people want to have the appearance that justice is being done as well as justice being done itself. So, people will get the opportunity to observe how the panel addresses these issues and how it determines whether this recall was indeed appropriate. So, I hope you found that interesting. You'll find that document online. Uh do follow any instructions and guidance. I cannot stress that enough. And obviously, you know, with the nature of this case and the allegations made, be very careful with what you post and what you say online and that sort of thing. That goes without saying if you've watched my channel for any length of time. But as always, leave me your thoughts in comments, bearing in mind the warnings that I've given you.

[00:19:21]Make sure you subscribe to the channel and as always, thank you for watching.