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17 April 2026 / Dr Jon Robins
Issue: 8157 / Categories: Features , Miscarriage of justice , Criminal
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Released, but no recompense

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© The Justice Gap

Three convictions overturned, all without compensation—Dr Jon Robins sets out the alarming failings that are ruining lives

Collectively, Peter Sullivan, Oliver Campbell and Justin Plummer spent a total of 77 years wrongly imprisoned before they had their convictions overturned. The three men have all been released from prison in the past three years and haven’t received a penny in compensation—despite alarming failings by the police and the courts.

The three men appeared side-by-side with their lawyers on a panel at an urgent meeting convened by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Miscarriages of Justice to highlight the ‘unconscionable cruelty’ (in the words of the group’s chair Kim Johnson MP) of the current arrangements for miscarriage of justice compensation and the almost total lack of ongoing support for the wrongly imprisoned on release.

Justin Plummer

In ‘Freedom: the final act’, 175 NLJ 8142, p21, I wrote about the extraordinary story of Justin Plummer, who had his conviction for a 1997 murder quashed in 2021, only to be

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NEWS
The Attorney General, Ellie Reeves KC MP, and Solicitor General, Andy Slaughter KC MP, marked the 25th anniversary of Pro Bono Week by joining lawyers, charities, students and parliamentarians at events celebrating voluntary legal work
Witness evidence can be compromised by AI before a solicitor sees the draft, leaving safeguards focused on authorship incomplete
Possession claims are entering a new digital era, with procedural traps awaiting practitioners who assume familiar rules still govern every step
A polished legal defence may owe more to artificial intelligence than legal merit—and creditors risk paying the price in delay and expense
An indemnity costs battle with a £20m gap could reopen an important question: what weight should an approved budget carry?
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