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WHAT do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?

An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons.

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Blunkett’s fight has been described as “outrageous”, “morally repugnant” and the “sickest of sick jokes”, but his spokesmen in the Home Office say it’s a completely “reasonable course of action” as the innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and lodgings if they weren’t in prison. The government deems the claw-back ‘Saved Living Expenses’.

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

 

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Posted by Starla* (Member # 5835) on :
 
This is absolutely disgusting.

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He said: “If I had known this I would have stayed on hunger-strike longer, that way I would have had a smaller bill.”

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And these are our allies?

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I wouldn't judge the whole of Britain, or the British government by the inane action of one clearly mad politician.

Imagine if people did that to the U.S - oh, wait...


It is a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Though I'm betting the Court won't let it happen anyway.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
Bureaucracies do morally repugnant things all the time. Tell me that you truly cannot see this ever happening here.
 

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Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
 

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one clearly mad politician.

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It didn't seem like one politician to me.
 

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Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
 
I read it as being the iniative of David Blunkett, the Home Secretary. The fact that the Home Department is supporting him is irrelevant - the public service department has to follow the lead and direction of the politician in charge of it.

When they talk about "the Government" it could just be quotes from the Home Department, or a spokesperson for Blunkett.

Even if Blair had supported it previously, it seems to me it would be politically very dumb to keep offering support now that there is a lot of (negative) media attention. Especially given a British election will be held in the not to far future.
 

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Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
 
Sure, charge him 80000...

But do it AFTER you pay his back salary, including interest and expected raises, as well as pain and suffering damages, and the cost of losing his family for 25 years, etc...

I figure... the brits probably owe him 10,000,000?
 

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Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
 
Actually, the guy was awarded 960 000 pounds in compensation.

Then they screwed him around with interest and stuff, and it doesn't justify the charging for board. But just something to keep in mind.
 

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Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
 
It's one thing to have a rogue judge handing down wacky sentences. It's another altogether when one man in the government can do something like this. It's not like it happened to one or two people and the press is just now getting wind of it. It seems like it's happened to more than just one or two people. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a pretty pervasive problem that no one in the government has stepped in to say, "Hey, you can't do that." I wonder what's taking them so long. The "Home Office" is much like our Justice Department. Can you imagine what would happen here if something like this had been going on for years? Makes me wonder if the "Home Office" has suddenly been taken over by someone like John Ashcroft.
 

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Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
 
Wow...that's pretty nervy to demand that unjustly imprisoned people pay for the privelege. I can see making inmates in general pay, but only charging the innocent for room and board is absurd, especially since they didn't choose to live there in the first place.

As a side note, if I were in prison for something I didn't do, I would try to escape. I wouldn't just sit around and wait 25 years for someone to realize I was innocent.
 

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Posted by Proteus (Member # 794) on :
 
This does not seem at all possible, and wouldn't put the Sunday Herald as the word of absolute truth. As a Brit, and a undergraduate Journalist at that, I've never even heard about this story which means that it hasn't exactly been given prominence in the press- and its the sort of thing that the Mail, Mirror or Sun would jump all over. But i'll forward a copy to my law lecturer - he's the PCC chairman of ethics and might provide an answer. Personally i doubt the story, it could be an example of bad journalism but i'll admit, with the placement and research of the piece it seems hard to pick faults with.
 

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Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
 
This isn't much worse than what we do here in the US. This guy got paid almost 1 million quid (almost 2 million dollars) and now (outrageously, mind you), is being asked, since he has been repaid for his lost time, is being asked to pay for the amenities the government provided. From a certain warped, twisted bottom-line bureaucratic POV, I csn see the rationale.

That said, here in the US, people wrongly convicted often get bupkis. Zilch, nothing.

-Bok
 

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Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
 
Hmm, so if he doesn't pay, what do they do? Throw him back in prison and keep racking up the charges?

Perhaps debtor's prison wasn't completely abolished in Britain.

Sad, so very sad for the fellow.
 

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