People who have been wrongly convicted will no longer have to pay living expenses for the time they spent in prison, the government will announce on Sunday after widespread outrage over the case of Andrew Malkinson.
One of Britain’s longest-serving victims of a miscarriage of justice, Malkinson, 57, had his conviction overturned last month by the court of appeal after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
Yet his return as a free man quickly soured when Malkinson was told to pay back living costs for his time in jail and that there would be a deduction from any compensation for his board and lodging while behind bars.
The Ministry of Justice has now scrapped the controversial guidance to its miscarriage of justice compensation scheme with immediate effect.
The lord chancellor, Alex Chalk, said the decision to ensure a fairer response for victims of miscarriages of justice was “commonsense”.
Malkinson said the prospect of paying back living costs had left him feeling “sickened”.
Chalk added: “It is not right that victims of devastating miscarriages of justice can have deductions made for saved living expenses.
“This commonsense change will ensure victims do not face paying twice for crimes they did not commit.”
On 26 July, the court of appeal overturned Malkinson’s conviction for the rape of a young woman in July 2003 in Greater Manchester after a new DNA analysis linked the crime to another person.
Malkinson had been jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years but served 17 because he continued to insist that he was innocent.
He said that he contemplated suicide many times and had been left “psychologically injured”.
Compounding his predicament was the threat from other inmates who saw him, as a convicted rapist, as fair game.
Malkinson admitted that he feared constantly for his life, counting down the minutes until lockup, when he would be safe inside his cell.
After it emerged that Malkinson would have to pay saved living expenses, Rishi Sunak responded to the mounting uproar by intervening to ask Home Office officials to “establish the facts” about the case.“In principle, for someone who has been wrongfully convicted, it doesn’t seem fair that they would have to repay or reimburse costs,” the prime minister’s press secretary stated.
The scrapped guidance concerning the miscarriage of justice compensation scheme – which is designed to help individuals restart and rebuild their lives – was added in 2006.
The maximum amount of compensation payable under the miscarriage of justice system is £1m for 10 or more years’ imprisonment, or £500,000 for up to 10 years.
