Cap on compensation for 'wrongful convictions'

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

500k - f*** that. In most cases, fair enough, but what if you do 20 years before it's overturned? What if your loss of earnings is greater than 500k?

 

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The government is to place a £500,000 ceiling on individual compensation payments to people wrongly convicted of crimes, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, said today.

Announcing an "urgent review" into the process by which convictions are quashed by the court of appeal, Mr Clarke said overall compensation payments are to be slashed by a total of £5m a year.

 

The capping of specific payments at £500,000 brings them in line with the maximum amount paid to victims of crime and is considerably less than previous payouts, which have been as high as £2.1m.

 

Mr Clarke announced a highly significant ministerial review of the legal test currently used by the court of appeal to quash criminal convictions. It will examine to what extent an error in the trial process necessarily leads to a miscarriage of justice, he said.

A discretionary compensation scheme set up by former home secretary Douglas Hurd in 1985 will be scrapped immediately, Mr Clarke said. That scheme paid out £2m a year.

 

A statutory scheme which currently pays out £6m a year will remain in force but a number of new limitations will be placed on claimants. Mr Clarke said he planned to bring in new laws so that compensation could be reduced to zero because of previous criminal convictions or other conduct by the applicant.

 

Scrapping the discretionary scheme means people who have been wrongly convicted will not be able to apply for compensation if their cases have been quashed while going through the normal appeal process. Instead they will have to sue for compensation through the civil courts.

 

Mr Clarke said: "The changes I have announced today will create a fairer, simpler and speedier system for compensating miscarriages of justice. I am scrapping the discretionary scheme, which has become increasingly anomalous, and I do not believe that this can continue to be justified.

 

"These changes will save more than £5m a year which we will plough back into improving criminal justice and support for victims of crime."

 

On the review of the court of appeal test, Mr Clarke said: "I have embarked on an urgent review, with the lord chancellor and attorney general, of the statutory test the court of appeal must use in deciding whether to quash a conviction.

 

"I propose to examine whether and if so to what extent an error in the trial process necessarily means a miscarriage of justice. I will consult upon the results of this review as soon as possible. If a change in the law is needed, we will propose it."

 

A review of this kind was previously recommended by Lord Justice Auld, who proposed allowing the court of appeal to come back with a "not proven" verdict, similar to the option available under Scottish law.

 

Mr Clarke said: "What I think individuals want to see is a situation where the court at all levels could properly assess the likelihood of an individual who is charged with a crime."

 

Mr Clarke confirmed that one possible option could be to extend the not proven verdict to courts in England and Wales.

 

"We are going to have a look at it," he said. "It would be a big change. It would be a radical change. The time has come to assess it."

 

Average final awards for wrongful conviction have increased from about £170,000 in 2003-4 to more than £250,000 in 2005-6, according to Home Office figures. The highest award was £2.1m. In comparison, the average award to a victim of crime is just £5,000.

 

Surjit Singh Clair, spokesman for the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO), described the plans as "awful" and predicted a flood of appeals to Europe by victims of miscarriages of justice.

 

He said victims of miscarriages of justice were already having large parts of their compensation deducted to pay for the "privilege" of board and living expenses in prison.

 

"The government seems to be working this out on the basis of bringing the policy in line with victims of crime. They should be looking at it the other way round and bringing the victims of crime up to fit in with the miscarriages of justice."

 

Bill Bache, the solicitor for Angela Cannings, who was cleared by the appeal court of killing her sons after spending 18 months in prison, said he was "dismayed" by the proposals.

 

"Anybody who is a completely innocent person who has been swept up into the nightmare of the judicial criminal system and suffered a wrongful conviction at the end of it is just as much a victim as the victims of a mugger in the street," Mr Bache told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

 

"They are just as entitled to compensation as the victims of the mugger. Many of those who have gone to prison have in effect suffered vastly more than many victims of, let's say, petty crime."

 

John Batt, a solicitor and writer who was part of the legal team working for Sally Clark, the Cheshire woman who was wrongly jailed in 1999 for killing her two children, said comparing victims of crime with victims of miscarriages of justice was like comparing "apples with pears".

 

"You cannot compare victims of crime with victims of miscarriage of justice. There is no logical connection between the two."

[boohog]

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[Redwire]

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[marvinbarcelona]

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Edited April 19, 2006 by marvinbarcelona