No compensation for injustice

Two men who suffered miscarriages of justice have lost their fight for compensation in the High Court.

Sam Hallam served more than seven years for murder while Victor Nealon served 17 years for attempted rape. Both men had their convictions overturned after the appeal court ruled that fresh evidence made their conviction unsafe.

The government narrowed eligibility for compensation last year to cases where it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the offence. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) contended that the fresh evidence did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that either man did not commit the offence. The men argued that the law violates the presumption of innocence.

Ruling in R (on the applications of Hallam and Nealon) v Ministry of Justice [2015] EWHC 1565 (Admin) this week, Lord Justice Burnett and Mrs Justice Thirlwall dismissed the men’s argument that their Art 6(2) human rights were breached by the restriction on compensation in miscarriage of justice cases.

They rejected the claimants’ argument that the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Allen v UK (App No 25424/09) was authority for the conclusion that the law on compensation was incompatible with Art 6(2). Instead, they accepted the MoJ’s argument that the Supreme Court’s decision in R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice [2011] UKSC 18, was binding authority for the conclusion that Art 6(2) has no bearing on the law, even though that case was decided before the law was changed.

Mark Newby of Quality Solicitors Jordans, who acted for Nealon, says: “It would be difficult for any member of the public to make any sense out of this. It cannot be right to send people to prison for decades quash their conviction and then not compensate them for all that they have suffered.”