Justice & Andrew Malkinson?

I listened to Andrew Malkinson on the radio after his conviction for rape in 2004 was quashed yesterday. It is hard to imagine how he felt during his years in prison & on being finally exonerated. The injustice of his case seems obvious, once again, largely due to the failures of the police. I imagine that the impact of what has happened to him for so long will be difficult, if not impossible to erase.

You would think that the State would compensate him fully for everything he has suffered. "Compensation - typically money, awarded to someone in recognition of loss, suffering, or injury". You would think that over 20 years of his life taken away would merit quite a lot of money, even if his life can never be replaced or compensated for. Between June 2019 and March 2020, there were 1,336 successful appeals against both decisions of Magistrates’ courts and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. But Malkinsons case is much more serious than most.

However, compensation is the exception rather than the rule in the UK. The statutory scheme gives the Justice Secretary discretion to pay compensation to a wrongly convicted person “when his conviction has been reversed or he has been pardoned on the grounds that a new or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice”. How much should be awarded is determined by an independent assessor, who can make deductions for any conduct of the applicant that contributed to the conviction, for his criminal record and for “saved living expenses”. So the applicant has to pay back to the Prison Estate the costs of his imprisonment! The maximum amount of compensation payable is £1 million in cases where the applicant has been imprisoned for at least 10 years, or £500,000 in all other cases.

I was completely shocked when I heard that. It seems utterly heartless & unjustifiable. We imprison someone for something they didn't do, because of the incompetence or even negligence in the system. In 2021/22, the average cost of a prison place in England and Wales was £46,696 a year. So presumably Malkinson will have to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds out of his "compensation". Whatever pittance he gets will take years to come through. In Scandinavia & Germany the compensation schemes are far more generous.

Trust me, because I worked for the IMB in Gloucester prison for years, imprisonment is a punishment no one would want. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to living a normal, free, life outside. To be expected to pay for the privilege of wrongful incarceration seems the height of injustice to me. How dare they? How on earth is Malkinson expected to re-integrate into society having been excluded from it for so long without a reasonable & just sum of money to help him - immediately?

 

I'm pleased for him that he has had support & that Buddhism & meditation helped him get through the ordeal. Hopefully that support will continue. But I have to ask, how can we call ourselves a civilised society if this is how we treat people in Malkinsons situation?