Legal News
Legal action launched over miscarriage of justice compensation restrictions (19 January 2015)
Date: 19/01/2015
A case against the Justice Secretary has been launched, after changes to the law left some of those wrongly convicted of crimes without compensation.
The Independent reports that Justice Secretary Chris Grayling introduced stricter new rules on claiming compensation for miscarriage of justice, which have made some wrongly convicted people unable to claim compensation.
Legal action against the Justice Secretary has been launched by Victor Nealon – who spent 17 years in jail after being convicted on a charge of attempted rape, before having his conviction quashed.
Mr Nealon has begun legal action after his jail sentence left him penniless, unable to work as a result of wrongful imprisonment – and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Legal action has also been launched by one of the UK’s youngest miscarriage of justice victims, Sam Hallam.
At the age of 17, Mr Hallam was convicted of murder, after a trainee chef was stabbed in a fight in London.
Mr Hallam spent seven years in jail before the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction in 2012. Evidence on Mr Hallam’s mobile phone supported his alibi and proved that he could not have committed the stabbing – but it had been overlooked.
The new compensation eligibility rules brought in by Chris Grayling state that compensation for wrongful conviction can only be paid when it can be shown “beyond reasonable doubt” that the person wrongly convicted of an offence did not commit the offence.
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