Claims for Miscarriage of Justice

If you have been wrongly convicted and subsequently acquitted, you may be entitled to compensation for a miscarriage of justice. We appreciate that no amount of money can ever compensate you for a wrongful conviction but it can help you rebuild your life.

Our Civil Liberties team has unrivalled expertise in this highly specialised field. We have helped victims secure compensation for miscarriage of justice in most of the major cases over the last fifteen years, including high profile claims for the Bridgewater Four and M25 Three. Furthermore, we have led ground-breaking legal challenges against Government cuts to compensation.

Since April 2006 there is only one scheme for compensation for miscarriage of justice, the Statutory Scheme under Section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. To be entitled to compensation for miscarriage of justice, the Applicant must show they have been convicted of a criminal offence and that subsequently their conviction has been reversed on an appeal out of time or on a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Compensation can also be granted if someone has been pardoned on the ground that a new, or newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

An application must be made to the Ministry of Justice and the Justice Secretary decides whether applicants are eligible for the scheme. If an applicant is eligible, an independent assessor decides on the level of compensation, which is currently capped at £500,000 if you have been in custody for less than ten years, and £1million if you have been in custody for over ten years.

Client cases

• We won significant compensation of between £500,000 and £1million for the Bridgewater Four, whose convictions were quashed for the murder of newspaper boy, Carl Bridgewater. They spent 18 years in jail. Two of the four had deductions taken off their awards for living expenses saved whilst they spent time in prison. We Judicially Reviewed these deductions and subsequently took proceedings to the Court of Appeal to challenge the decision to reduce the payments.
• We secured compensation claims for two of the M25 Three, Eddie Browning, Andrew Evans.
• We are currently challenging the restrictive eligibility criteria for entry to the statutory scheme in the Court of Appeal.

If you want us to investigate a claim for you, it is important that you do not delay and you contact us as soon as possible. Applications need to be made within two years of your conviction being quashed unless there are exceptional circumstances.