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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Raw deal for those who are wrongfully convicted | Raw deal for those who are wrongfully convicted |
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| Glyn Maddocks and Dr Jon Robins call for the government to repeal the 2014 change to the law on compensation and raise the £1m threshold for payouts | Glyn Maddocks and Dr Jon Robins call for the government to repeal the 2014 change to the law on compensation and raise the £1m threshold for payouts |
| Your article on Andrew Malkinson’s initial compensation payout for wrongful conviction (12 February) reveals the horror of the situation for applicants to the government’s mean-spirited and legally illiterate compensation scheme. The change to the law in 2014, which means those wrongfully convicted must overturn their conviction and prove they are innocent “beyond all reasonable doubt”, has seen payouts collapse. Between 1999 and 2007, 307 applicants received a share of a total £81m in compensation. Between 2016 and 2024, there were 591 applicants, and the Ministry of Justice awarded 39 claimants a share of just £2.4m. | Your article on Andrew Malkinson’s initial compensation payout for wrongful conviction (12 February) reveals the horror of the situation for applicants to the government’s mean-spirited and legally illiterate compensation scheme. The change to the law in 2014, which means those wrongfully convicted must overturn their conviction and prove they are innocent “beyond all reasonable doubt”, has seen payouts collapse. Between 1999 and 2007, 307 applicants received a share of a total £81m in compensation. Between 2016 and 2024, there were 591 applicants, and the Ministry of Justice awarded 39 claimants a share of just £2.4m. |
| Few people could comprehend the toll of being convicted for a crime they did not commit, yet successive governments have seen victims of miscarriages of justice as a target for spending cuts. The allegations of mismanagement at the Criminal Cases Review Commission and an increasingly conservative court of appeal mean it is near impossible to overturn a wrongful conviction. The government could repeal the 2014 change to law on compensation and raise the £1m threshold for payouts.Glyn Maddocks and Dr Jon Robins Directors, Future Justice Project | |
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