THE Evening Press can today reveal how a Parole Board blunder has kept blind prisoner Yvonne Sleightholme locked up in jail.

Documents obtained by the paper reveal that the board's justification for refusing Sleightholme a transfer to an open prison last autumn - that she posed too great a risk of violence - was based on inaccurate information.

Editor Liz Page has written to the board, asking for it to look again at the application.

Sleightholme was jailed in 1991 for shooting dead farmer's wife Jayne Smith in a Ryedale farmyard in 1989 - a murder which she has always denied committing. Her trial judge recommended she should serve ten years.

The board said last October her behaviour had been exemplary and she would benefit from transfer. But it believed that, despite her blindness, her current circumstances would "not preclude the risk of re-offending".

It said she had been assessed as suitable for an enhanced thinking skills course and possible subsequent assessment for an anger management course.

"The panel feel strongly that these are areas of crucial concern that need to be addressed before a detailed assessment of current risk can be made," it said in a report.

"Without the benefit of completed work on her thinking skills and coping with anger and rejection... the panel was satisfied that she poses too great a risk of serious violence for release or transfer to open conditions."

But this paper has obtained a copy of a certificate proving that Sleightholme completed an Enhanced Thinking Skills course last August - two months before the Parole Board filed its report.

Other documents show that she took part in an anger management course more than five years before. She told a board member in 1998 that she had done both social skills and anger management courses.

A probation officer's report from 1997 said she had completed a three-day introductory course on anger management and contributed well, showing an understanding of how tensions could build up and how they might be alleviated, and she was willing to explore the issue in more depth.

It also said Sleightholme had coped well and without reacting aggressively when fellow inmates had bullied her because of her blindness.

Editor Liz Page said: "What is at issue here is not whether Sleightholme committed the original offence; it is whether she has been treated fairly by the Parole Board. The documents appear to show she has not and the paper believes the board should look at the application again."

A Parole Board spokesman said it could not comment specifically on individual cases.

But if concerns were raised about a decision, and about the accuracy of information upon which it was based, they would be investigated. Cases could be assessed again if the board was found to have acted in error.

Updated: 10:27 Wednesday, March 26, 2003