Man jailed for 1986 murder has conviction quashed

[SerendipityJane]

Let's hope any compensation he gets isn't swallowed up by his charges for board and lodging.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce809e3gd1xo

Forty fucking years. I can’t even imagine. I hope there will be a proper investigation into how this happened.

I thought the same. He needs massive compensation and a fully paid for home to spend the rest of his life in. And probably a lot of therapy.

And I wonder how many women have been raped and or murdered by the person who actually did it? It won't be someone already in jail if the DNA isn't on the database.

This is just awful. That poor man, and his poor family.

And meanwhile, the real killer has been walking free for all these years so there has been no justice for the victim and her family either.

No amount of compensation can give this man his life back.

I hope there are consequences for the dishonest cops involved.

Very dignified responses from everyone involved. Thank goodness for advances in DNA testing. Horrendous that the real murderer has got away with it, presumably it does nt match with any sex offenders that are on the police DNA base.

Hopefully promotion a nice pension, and if they are lucky some sort of award.

Luckily "we" changed the law a while back to ensure that wrongful convictions don't require automatic compensation.

I am quite sure he will be permitted to have therapy, if he can pay for it.

Shhhh - you'll upset the rather dim death penalty supporters. They never seem to be able to grasp that hanging one innocent man leaves the guilty free to carry on. Just ask any of Christies victims after Evans was executed.

You are of course completely right. All society suffers from a miscarriage of justice

Just been reading about this. Tragic beyond words. The horror of being locked up for something you didn’t do, no one believing you. For his family the desperation and heartbreak. I just can’t get my head round it.

poor poor man

“…Luckily “we” changed the law a while back to ensure that wrongful convictions don’t require automatic compensation……..”

You are kidding @SerendipityJane

And this is exactly why I think the death penalty should never be reintroduced.

Imagine walking to the gallows knowing you aren’t guilty and nobody can help you.

I agree

Poor man, how can you ever get over something like this., no doubt the police have all retired and are living the good life. I hope he gets the support, housing, finances and compensation that he deserves.

Just unimaginable. I am so struck by the graciousness of both his own and his family’s words, and how they put Diane Sindall centre stage.

Quote

R (on the application of Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice
[2014] UKSC 17, [2014] 1 AC 986

Summary of the Case:

This UK Supreme Court ruling clarified the meaning of a "miscarriage of justice" under Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which governs compensation for wrongful convictions.

The court held that a person is only eligible for compensation if they can demonstrate that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the offence.

In other words, it is not enough for a conviction to be overturned — the applicant must prove their factual innocence.

endquote

So by inverting the entire premise of justice - requiring the accused to prove their innocence, not the prosecution to prove their guilt - very few people wrongfully imprisoned are liable for compensation.

It's a thin end of the wedge. If you start compensating innocent criminals, how long before you start compensating guilty ones.

(No, I won't).

I passed very close to the scene of Diane's murder, around the time (within 10-20 minutes) she was being murdered, as I walked home with my BF at the time - that memory still lives with me and makes me wonder if we'd walked a different route home - we had 2 choices at the junction of Borough Road / Whetstone Lane - then maybe we would have disturbed the murderer - we went up Whetstone Lane, she was murdered just off Borough Road, literally 50 yards from the junction.

The court held that a person is only eligible for compensation if they can demonstrate that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the offence

Hopefully the DNA evidence is deemed to do that?

The poor man. The horror he must have gone through. What a dignified statement he gave.

Generally the whole point is that new evidence doesn't count for compensation.

The ruling effectively says that a wrong verdict isn't necessarily a miscarriage of justice.

Remember that very few of us are clever enough to be lawyers. And even less of us are clever enough to be MP. And after that even less of us are clever enough to be Supreme Court justices.

I heard this on the car radio and thought - he is a pensioner now.

My second thought was - and he won't be eligible for a full state pension as he won't have been paying National Insurance contributions.
so of course he will be eligible I suppose for Pension Credit.

having noticed this thread, I then thought to myself - he won't have a private pension either.

No compensation will ever ' compensate ' for these years he has been in prison.
but the compensation should at a minimum be 38 years worth of a ' decent ' salary so at a rough guess a minimum of £1.5m ?

shocking that he has to pay his board

No compensation will ever ' compensate ' for these years he has been in prison.

Which at least makes no compensation honest.

but the compensation should at a minimum be 38 years worth of a ' decent ' salary so at a rough guess a minimum of £1.5m ?

I believe the Supreme Court determined that no matter how grave the penalties, there is a cap if £1,000,000 for any compensation if it's awarded. Which would work out at £26k a year.

Especially if he isn't awarded compensation ...

To be fair, and avoid charges of hyperbole, the requirement for wrongly imprisoned victims to repay board and lodging was scrapped when people realised it wasn't the sick joke I had been saying it was for 3 decades since the Guildford and Birmingham cases in the 90s.

I am guessing the reason this further article also swerves the word "compensation" is because there won't be any.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rej5jv626o

That’s a good point I hadn’t considered.

when the wrong person is locked up it must give the actual perpetrator more feeling of power.