End living costs charge for wrongfully convicted - Tory MP

A elder Conservative MP has urged ministers to alteration situation compensation rules aft it emerged a antheral who wrongly spent 17 years successful jailhouse whitethorn person wealth deducted from his payout.

Andrew Malkinson, 57, was cleared of a rape helium did not commit. He called the existent rules "kind of sick".

Under existing rules, savings made connected surviving costs portion successful situation tin beryllium deducted from compensation.

Sir Bob Neill said: "Any fair-minded idiosyncratic thinks this is conscionable wrong."

The authorities has nary plans for immoderate changes but keeps each laws nether review.

The rules day backmost to a determination made successful 2007 by the House of Lords.

Sir Bob, who is president of the Justice Select Committee, said it was thought astatine the clip that taxpayers would beryllium offended astatine paying wealth to idiosyncratic who was freed connected a technicality.

He said Mr Malkinson, however, was not cleared connected a technicality, but connected DNA evidence.

"This was a superior miscarriage of justice," helium told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It's intelligibly not close that idiosyncratic who was deprived of their liberty, due to the fact that of the failures of the authorities and its institutions for a fig of years, past should wage the authorities oregon beryllium obliged to springiness immoderate wealth backmost to the state, for the privilege of having been wrongly incarcerated.

"That surely offends immoderate any benignant of consciousness of justice," helium added.

He said helium would similar ministers to alteration the rules to support those wrongly convicted from paying specified costs.

"The sums progressive are trivial successful the wide strategy of things," helium said.

The maximum outgo successful cases wherever idiosyncratic has been successful jailhouse for much than 10 years is £1m.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "This was a profoundly troubling lawsuit and we recognise the symptom of immoderate idiosyncratic punished for a transgression they did not perpetrate - which is wherefore we proceed to enactment the enactment of the autarkic Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

"It is lone close victims of miscarriages of justness tin use for compensation and that each requests are decently assessed autarkic of government."

In 1997, convictions against cousins Vincent and Michael Hickey for the execution of Carl Bridgewater astatine a workplace adjacent Stourbridge successful 1978 were recovered to beryllium fundamentally flawed.

Michael Hickey was subsequently awarded £1.02m and Vincent Hickey £550,000 but, successful each case, a 25% deduction was made from the portion of their compensation that reflected nonaccomplishment of net portion successful prison.

This was due to the fact that of surviving expenses they did not person to wage portion successful prison.

On the programme, transgression defence lawyer Matthew Ryder KC described the difficulties of getting the Court of Appeal to see cases of imaginable wrongful conviction.

He said 2 Parliamentary committees had recovered the CCRC needed to beryllium "less hesitant" astir referring cases to the Court of Appeal.

"We've got to get ourselves successful a presumption wherever if there's a hazard of injustice, a hazard of idiosyncratic similar an guiltless antheral staying successful custody for a precise agelong clip erstwhile their cases should beryllium considered, we've got to find a mechanics wherever those cases get considered by the Court of Appeal," helium said.