Wrongly jailed in UK may not get redress

People jailed in Britain for years for offences they did not commit will not be able to claim compensation unless they can prove to a court that they did not commit the crime, under changes accepted by MPs in the House of Commons yesterday.

Defending the change, home office minister Damian Green said “a clear definition” of miscarriage of justice was necessary. “Our aim was not to seek to restrict compensation, but to provide clarity,” he said.

The debate occurred on the 40th anniversary of the M62 bus bombing by the IRA, which killed nine soldiers and three civilians, an atrocity that led to the introduction of draconian anti-terror legislation and the wrongful conviction of Judith Ward.

Mentally ill, Ms Ward served 18 years in jail before three appeal court judges unanimously ruled in 1992 that her conviction had been “a grave miscarriage of justice” and that it had been “secured by ambush” by detectives under pressure to get a conviction.

The British government, said Mr Green, believes “that a miscarriage of justice arises only when there is in existence a fact which entirely exonerates the accused: in other words, a fact which makes it unquestionable that the accused did not commit the crime”.

People whose convictions have been quashed by the court would be “likely” to get compensation if they could prove that they were somewhere else at the time of a crime, or if someone else was convicted, he said.

Proof of innocence
The House of Lords last month rejected the home office's original plans which demanded proof of innocence.

This forced it to return to MPs yesterday with a new wording requiring people to prove, instead, that they did not commit the crime.

However, Mr Green insisted this did not mean a person would have to prove their innocence “which, of course, would alter the presumptions that lie at the heart of the criminal justice system”.

He accepted miscarriage of justice has been defined “narrowly”, but it “nevertheless provides for a range of circumstances in which compensation should rightly be paid to help people who need to rebuild their lives after suffering great injustices”.

It would, he said, ensure that compensation is “rightly paid to help people who need to rebuild their lives after suffering great injustices”, but people whose convictions “had been quashed but who had in fact committed the offence” would not be.

Definition
Dismissing Mr Green's explanation of the definition between innocence and "did not commit", SDLP MP Mark Durkan said the minister had been "asked again and again to tell us the difference".

“We are being told that there is a big difference and the minister is emphasising its importance, but he cannot explain, specify, spell out or measure in any way the difference between whether someone can show that the evidence proves that they are innocent.”

The legislation passed by the Commons yesterday would have made it difficult for the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four to win compensation after they were released, Labour MP Jack Dromey said.

“Such serious miscarriages of justice are mercifully rare – there are typically only a couple a year – but it is absolutely right that compensation should be available for the innocent victims who have suffered as a result of them,” he said.

Instead of bringing clarity to the law, Mr Dromey warned it will have the opposite effect.