A MAN convicted of the rapes of a mother and her nine-year-old daughter today (Mon) won permission to appeal against his classification as a highly dangerous prisoner.

William Kenealy, from Northolt, was 25 when he was given five life terms for the brutal attack on Boxing Day 1996, and the rape of a 17-year-old schoolgirl making her way home from a concert in Ealing 10 months later.

Despite strong objections from a barrister representing Justice Secretary Jack Straw, a senior judge ruled Kenealy should be allowed to bring a legal challenge over his “category A'' status.

He denies he was guilty of the rapes and is now seeking category B status, which would allow him to attend a special course to help him progress through the prison system.

Mr Justice Collins, sitting in London, said the case raised issues “of how one deals with a prisoner who doesn't admit his guilt''.

He gave Kenealy permission to seek judicial review of decisions by the director of high security prisons that he had not addressed his sexual offending and presented too great a risk to be downgraded.

His lawyers argued that he was in a Catch 22 situation because he refused to admit his guilt and the director had acted irrationally.

But Paul Greatorex, for the Justice Secretary, said of Kenealy: “If he doesn't belong in category A it is difficult to know which prisoners do.''

He described Kenealy, who maintains he is innocent, as “a classic category A prisoner'' and said there was “a very high risk of something bad happening to a member of the public'' if he were to escape - “in these circumstances escape should be made impossible''.

Category A inmates are deemed “prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public... and for whom the aim must be to make escape impossible''.

The judge was told probation officers had recommended that Kenealy be downgraded so that he could go to a “therapeutic community'' at another prison which would only take category B prisoners, but these had been ignored by the director.

Flo Krause, appearing for Kenealy, who is held at Whitemoor Prison, Cambridgeshire, said he had achieved “excellent results'' in a large number of behaviour programmes designed to address his previous criminal lifestyle, which mostly involved “acquisitive offending''.

The judge indicated the failure to make such courses open to category A prisoners might be open to challenge.

He said: “I make it clear that what has persuaded me to give leave in this case is the existence of a course which can only be attended if he is downgraded to category B. Those special circumstances justify leave.''