JUSTICE Secretary David Gauke’s decision to “pressurise the chair of the Parole Board” to resign over the proposed release of serial sex attacker John Worboys has been branded “not acceptable” by a High Court judge.

Parole Board chairman Nick Hardwick, who was forced out in March, said in a witness statement cited by the High Court that Mr Gauke had told him that “he did not want to get ‘macho’ with me … I understood it to be a clear threat.”

Mr Justice Mostyn ruled yesterday that the “short” length of tenure coupled with Mr Gauke’s power to dismiss the chair meant that the “tenure of Parole Board membership [fails] the test of objective independence.”

The damning findings came as the High Court dismissed an attempt to halt the selection of a new Parole Board chair brought by an armed robber serving an indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP).

Paul Wakenshaw was sent to jail for a minimum of six years under an IPP sentence in 2009. He is due to appear before the Parole Board for assessment of his suitability for release.

But he claimed that the fallout from what the judge called “the Worboys controversy” had demonstrated that the Parole Board was not sufficiently independent and that he could not receive a fair hearing.

Mr Justice Mostyn found that a “reasonable, albeit well-informed observer, could conclude that the short term of appointment, coupled with the precarious nature of the tenure, might wrongly influence a decision that had to be made.”

However, he declined to issue an injunction stopping the appointment of a new chair, saying he did not favour “such a disruptive remedy,” but he granted Mr Wakenshaw permission to seek a declaration that the Parole Board was not objectively fair.