Mahmoud Abu Rideh is considered so dangerous by the British Government that it was considered imperative to keep him in a high security prison for three years without trial, not even informing him of the crime of which he was accused.

He is a man considered so dangerous that the Government has now forced through legislation casting aside 800 year-old liberties in order to secure the right to hold him, and those of his dangerous ilk, under house arrest or otherwise monitor his actions.

Under the terms of a control order stemming from this legislation, Mr Abu Rideh was released two weeks ago, not from prison, but from the high-security mental hospital to which he had been transferred due to the deterioration in his mental condition during the three years of his internment. Within days of being released he was admitted to hospital having taken an overdose. He claimed that he could not cope with the confusion and stress of trying to comply with the Kafka-esque requirements of the order, which the authorities have clearly tweaked as problems have arisen. The speed with which our civil liberties have been sold down the river left no time in which to think through in advance how these control orders could be practically imlemented.

As an illustration of this unpreparedness another of the released detainees found himself taken directly from prison to a premises without food, money or a phone. Given the lack of clarity over the restrictions, all he could do was hope that someone would turn up to help him, unsure whether he would be arrested if he went outside. He had to wait sixteen hours before help arrived.

Last Wednesday Mr Abu Rideh walked alone and unnanounced into the offices of The Guardian to inform them of the curious conditions under which he lives his new life. These restrictions include the following:-

· He is not allowed to make arrangements to meet anybody, but he can drop in to see anyone if he does so unannounced [presumably this is why The Guardian didn't know he was coming];

· He cannot attend any pre-arranged meetings or gatherings, but was present at the anti-war demonstration at Hyde Park last Saturday. He says he stumbled across it while playing football in the park with his children;

· He is banned from having visitors to his home unless they are vetted in advance, but he is allowed to arrange to attend group prayers at a mosque;

· He thinks he is being followed on the tube, but if he calls a taxi, no one tails him.

He can go out during the day, subject to the above rules, but must be back by 7pm. He wears an electronic tag at all times to monitor his movements. However, as The Yorkshire Ranter has pointed out, the tagging and monitoring systems are so rudimentary as to be a minor inconvenience for anyone with serious ill-intent on their mind.

The current situation is one which can leave no-one satisfied. If any of these men are as dangerous as the government claims, they will be highly amused by the quaint methods being used to track their movements. The control orders implicitly assume that the suspects are a hybrid of Mr Hyde and Cinderella, shiny happy people by day who transform into dangerous fanatical terrorists by night. During the day how difficult would it be for a determined and organised international terrorist organisation to ensure that an agent 'bumps into' the detainee if information needed to be passed? Mr Abu Rideh claims not to have been tailed by car anyway, so given that the tags simply detect whether he is at home or not, whoever he rubs shoulders with during the day is a matter of conjecture.

In any case, all this is almost certainly immaterial. Even if these people were dangerous at some point, they are now thoroughly compromised as potential terrorist agents. What would it say about Al Qaeda's 'strength in depth' if they had not been able to put in place new, more discreet operatives within the last three years? The chances of those subject to the control orders being involved in future terrorist activities are virtually zero.

However, in a situation where these people have no opportunity to prove their innocence, I can't see how they will ever have these control orders removed. What would be the basis for such a reversal? There are no grounds for appeal as there has been no trial. Any good behaviour would be seen as a success of the restrictions rather than evidence of a miscarriage of justice. If any of those subject to these orders are innocent they will never have a chance to prove it, and are doomed to a life of surveillance and suspicion.

But it is not just the wrongly accused who suffer under this legislation. We all now live under the threat of wrongful arrest and unquestioned process through the system into a holding pattern of house-arrest, kurfew and surveillance. Of course, none of us think it will happen to us. Gerry Conlon didn't, but even with the benefit of a trial, he still found himself and his friends and family subject to a pre-meditated miscarriage of justice.

How much easier it will be to secure a conviction under the new system. How much more tempting it will be for the forces of law and order to put the finger on someone who will never have the chances to defend themselves in a court of law. How ironic that a mere month after acknowledging the propensity for our judicial system to deliver such unsafe verdicts in his apology to Mr Conlon, that Tony Blair would railroad such dangerous legislation through Parliament, defying the weight of our judiciary who found themselves fighting valiantly but vainly to protect liberties so deeply ingrained that they go to the heart of what it means to be British.