SUB-HEADING: "Andrew Malkinson faced deductions of tens of thousands from his future compensation to pay the state for his living costs while wrongly incarcerated - but the law is now changing;
GIST: "The man who spent 17 years locked up for a rape he did not commit will not have to pay for his “board and lodgings” in jail after all.
Andrew Malkinson won a historic legal victory yesterday as the government scrapped the controversial policy for all cases with immediate effect.
There was public outrage that Mr Malkinson, 57, faced deductions of tens of thousands from his future compensation to pay the state for his living costs while wrongly incarcerated.
The swift about-turn follows a review by Justice Secretary Alex Chalk, who said on announcing the move yesterday: “This common sense change will ensure victims do not face paying twice for crimes they did not commit.”
On hearing the news, Mr Malkinson said: “The scrapping of this unjust rule is the first of many changes we need in our justice system to protect the innocent. No one should have to suffer what I’ve been through, so I hope Alex Chalk won’t stop here.”
The change of policy is not believed to be retrospective, and last night there were calls for the state to pay back thousands previously deducted from payments to wrongly jailed people.
These include cousins Vincent and Michael Hickey, two of the “Bridgewater Four” wrongly convicted of the murder of a young paperboy in 1978.
They protested at losing a quarter of their compensation for prison board and lodgings when freed 19 years later, but still had to pay it.
Mr Malkinson, from Grimsby, north Lincs, was cleared by the Court of Appeal last week, 20 years after he was wrongly arrested and jailed for a rape in Salford, Greater Manchester.
The court heard that DNA evidence has put someone else in the frame. He could now get up to £1million in compensation for the miscarriage of justice. Under the old rules, assessors could deduct cash for “saved expenses” such as rent or mortgage payments not incurred while locked up.
Last week Mr Malkinson travelled to Amsterdam after revealing he wanted to renounce his UK citizenship and become a Dutch national.
His lawyer Emily Bolton, of the charity Appeal, said: “Andy has succeeded in getting this insulting compensation rule scrapped.
“But too many wrongly convicted people are denied compensation altogether because of a restrictive test which flies in the face of the presumption of innocence. Even if Andy got the maximum amount for each year wrongly imprisoned it would be nearly 30 grand less than an MP’s salary.”'
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-wrongly-jailed-17-years-30636992
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
