Man wrongfully jailed for murder he didn't commit hit with £37,000 bill for prison room
A man who was wrongly jailed for 11 years over a murder he didn't commit was hit with a £37,000 bill for his prison room.
Michael O'Brien and two other men — known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three — were convicted of the 1987 killing of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders. However, the trio later had their convictions quashed after police misconduct in the case emerged.
Following his release, O'Brien was given £650,000 in compensation. But an independent assessor, Lord Brennan KC, decided £37,000 should be deducted from the payout to account for living costs like rent and food that he would have had to pay for if he hadn't been jailed
Nearly 60,000 people have signed a petition backing O'Brien's campaign to be reimbursed. Mr O'Brien, 55, and a group of supporters held a protest on June 27 outside the office of the Secretary of State for Wales, Jo Stevens, in Cardiff's Central Square.
As reported in Wales Online, he said: "No one came out even though we gave them the opportunity. They knew we'd be there because I told them we would be. It just goes to show the contempt they've got for us. She [Ms Stevens] should be looking after the Welsh people and raising our concerns. I wrote to her weeks ago and haven't heard back. We've got the backing of 22 members of the Senedd but we have not heard from her at all."
Last year a motion backed by 22 members called for retrospective repayment of bed and board deductions in cases like Mr O'Brien's. After his conviction was overturned in 1999, O'Brien successfully challenged the bed and board deduction in the High Court, but the UK Government then won in the Court of Appeal.
Mr O'Brien decided not to appeal that ruling because of legal advice that he could face costs of around £140,000 if he lost again. But the debate hit headlines again in 2023 when the rape conviction of Andrew Malkinson — who had spent 17 years in jail — was quashed.
The then-Tory Government decided Mr Malkinson should not be charged for bed and board. A review was launched into whether other wrongly convicted ex-prisoners should have their deductions revoked. But the Labour Government opted against this as the Ministry of Justice warned it would mean "significant" costs.
O'Brien has now partnered with Paul Blackburn, who spent 25 years in jail for an attempted murder he did not commit and then had £100,000 bed and board cut from his compensation. Hickman and Rose solicitors are representing Mr O'Brien and Mr Blackburn on a 'no win, no fee' basis but they could face heavy costs if the judicial review does not go their way, so they have launched a crowdfunding page.
Mr O'Brien said: 'This is not just about us. It's about every individual who has been wrongfully convicted and then charged for their stay in prison — a place they should never have been in the first place.
"It is estimated by the Innocence Project that hundreds could be affected by this policy. This practice adds insult to injury for victims of wrongful convictions and must be addressed immediately. We have now been refused legal aid to challenge this unjust decision and aim to raise the funds to cover our legal costs.
"They did not charge guilty people for being rightly imprisoned — only innocent miscarriages of justice victims.'
The UK Government said that since August 2023, living expenses have not been deducted from compensation but that it is "standard government protocol that policy changes are not applied retrospectively".
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