Wrongly convicted men must pay 'lodgings' costs for prison

Three men who spent years in jail because of miscarriages of justice will have to pay "living expenses" for the time they spent behind bars, the law lords ruled.

By a four to one majority, the judges decided yesterday that those wrongfully jailed must repay 25 per cent of their compensation.

Michael Hickey and his cousin, Vincent, were wrongly convicted of the murder of the newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater, 13, who was shot dead in 1978 at Yew Tree Farm, Wordsley, West Midlands. Their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal in 1997. Lord Brennan QC, the Home Office-appointed assessor, had awarded Michael Hickey £990,000 and Vincent £506,220, subject to 25 per cent deductions to pay for their saved "board and lodgings" expenses.

Michael O'Brien, who was 20 when he was wrongfully convicted in 1988 of the murder of a Cardiff newsagent, was awarded £670,000 compensation after spending 10 years in jail. His award was subject to the same deductions.

The three appealed to the House of Lords against a Court of Appeal ruling that the independent assessor was entitled to a deduction from compensation for loss of earnings made to victims of long-running miscarriages of justice cases to reflect the necessities of life which they would have had to buy from their wages, had they been at liberty.

The law lords also dismissed a second challenge, again by four to one, over deductions from compensation for past criminality.

Susie Labinjoh, repre-senting the Hickeys, said: "The men are devastated by this decision. They feel that it adds further insult to injury. To deduct saved living expenses from their compensation offends against justice."