Raw deal for those who are wrongfully convicted

Andrew Malkinson, who was wrongfully convicted, is to be given a payout by the Ministry of Justice, more than a year and a half after the court of appeal declared his innocence. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Your article on Andrew Malkinson’s initial compensation payout for wrongful conviction (12 February) reveals the horror of the situation for applicants to the government’s mean-spirited and legally illiterate compensation scheme. The change to the law in 2014, which means those wrongfully convicted must overturn their conviction and prove they are innocent “beyond all reasonable doubt”, has seen payouts collapse. Between 1999 and 2007, 307 applicants received a share of a total £81m in compensation. Between 2016 and 2024, there were 591 applicants, and the Ministry of Justice awarded 39 claimants a share of just £2.4m.

Few people could comprehend the toll of being convicted for a crime they did not commit, yet successive governments have seen victims of miscarriages of justice as a target for spending cuts. The allegations of mismanagement at the Criminal Cases Review Commission and an increasingly conservative court of appeal mean it is near impossible to overturn a wrongful conviction. The government could repeal the 2014 change to law on compensation and raise the £1m threshold for payouts.
Glyn Maddocks and Dr Jon Robins
Directors, Future Justice Project

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