Cash for acquitted prisoners?

Remand prisoners who are acquitted when their cases reach court should be allowed to apply for compensation, a report says today.

They would be eligible to claim for cash to cover lost earnings, employment and housing and for the stress suffered, the Prison Reform Trust said. It also said that the Government needed to act to stop the rise of remand prisoners, as the number of those held awaiting trial had more than doubled in the last 15 years.

The report, Prisoners on Remand, called for an end to the remanding in custody of 15- and 16-year-olds and for improved regimes for remand prisoners. The trust said there was an average of 11,613 remand prisoners held in 1996. Fewer than half the men and fewer than one-third of the women remanded in custody were subsequently jailed, according to the report.