Paul Frew presses Justice Minister over ‘not fully accurate’ Anderson account
Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long, and (inset) North Antrim MLA Paul Frew
Tuesday 22 September 2026
North Antrim DUP MLA Paul Frew has challenged Justice Minister Naomi Long over how she came to give the Assembly information that was later found to be incomplete about the temporary release of convicted murderer Gary Anderson, who remains unlawfully at large.
Mr Frew, who chairs Stormont’s Justice Committee, questioned whether information supplied to the Minister had wrongly placed responsibility firmly on the court and raised concerns about what officials knew and when it was communicated to her.
The exchange came as Mrs Long defended her handling of the controversy, saying she had acted on the information available to her at the time and moved to correct the Assembly after further details emerged.
Frew questions information given to Minister
Mr Frew began by saying his thoughts were with the family of murder victim Karol Kelly, while his concerns centred on public safety.
He pointed to comments made by Mrs Long in the Assembly on 15 September, when she said the Northern Ireland Prison Service had “conducted all the necessary checks and assessments”.
Mr Frew also highlighted the Minister’s account that where a judge wanted the Prison Service to reconsider a decision, the matter would often be referred back to it. Mrs Long had told MLAs that in Anderson’s case the court instead went further by setting conditions around his release.
Mr Frew asked:
“Will the Minister apologise to the House for misleading it? I ask that she address my concern that she leads a Department that sees fit to provide her with false information and then withholds the facts from her until the courts intervene with the full court statement.”
Long rejects claim she misled Assembly
Mrs Long strongly rejected the suggestion that she had misled MLAs, either deliberately or inadvertently, saying she had been transparent about the information available to her.
She said:
“First, I take exception to the suggestion that I misled the House, inadvertently or otherwise. I was fully transparent in providing the information and did so with full candour.”
The Minister said the legal read-out received by her Department contained no mention of an opportunity for the Prison Service to reconsider Anderson’s case.
She added:
“Although the judge understood the offer to have been made in the court, that was not conveyed to my officials. There was therefore no one in the Department who could have advised me of that fact last Tuesday so that I could make it known.”
Mrs Long said the written judgment available at that stage also did not refer to NIPS being asked to reconsider its decision.
Full transcript revealed further information
According to the Minister, it was the subsequent availability of the full court transcript on Friday that revealed a discussion had taken place about whether the matter could be reconsidered by NIPS.
She said officials then attended court on Monday to listen to recordings in an effort to establish exactly what had happened when the possibility of reconsideration was first discussed.
Mrs Long said:
“At the point at which I realised that the information that I had, in good faith, presented last week was not as full or as candid as I would wish, I contacted the Speaker’s Office and requested to come to the Chamber at the earliest opportunity to correct it. I cannot see what more a Minister could do.”
During Monday’s proceedings, Assembly Speaker Edwin Poots said it appeared information previously given to the House “was not fully accurate”, while stressing the responsibility on ministers and members to correct the record at the earliest opportunity when inaccuracies emerge.
Review to examine flow of information
Mrs Long said she remained confident that officials kept her informed but acknowledged they could do so only on the basis of information available to them.
She confirmed that a full review would examine whether information available to officials was not passed to her or whether there had instead been a breakdown in communication between the Departmental Solicitor’s Office and the Department of Justice.
“At this point, I have no reason to believe that that was the case,” she said in relation to information being available to officials but not passed to her.
The Department had already confirmed that an urgent investigation was ordered after further information emerged indicating that the possibility of reconsidering the original NIPS decision had been discussed during court proceedings but had not been communicated to the Prison Service decision-makers.
The controversy centres on Anderson’s compassionate temporary release to attend his father’s funeral. NIPS had originally refused his application amid public-safety and other concerns before the decision was challenged through judicial review proceedings. The High Court case is recorded as Anderson and another’s Application for Judicial Review [2026] NIKB 54.
Anderson subsequently absconded while temporarily released and remains unlawfully at large. Police have urged him to surrender and have warned members of the public not to approach him.
The review now leaves a central question to be established: whether relevant information failed to move between lawyers, Prison Service decision-makers and the Department, or whether information available within the system was not passed to the Minister before she addressed the Assembly.
