MPs calling for 'perverse' payment for wrongful imprisonment to be abolished

MPS and campaigners have slammed a 'perverse' policy which could see an innocent man who spent 17 years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of rape charged thousands of pounds for his time in jail. Andrew Malkinson today said he was 'sickened' by the idea of having to pay for his 'board and lodgings' while in prison.

The 57-year-old was found guilty of raping a woman in Salford in 2003 and the next year was jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years. His conviction was quashed by senior judges at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday after DNA evidence linking another man to the crime came to light.

But he has now revealed he may have to pay for the cost of food and accommodation while he was behind bars. The money will be deducted from whatever compensation he receives for wrongful imprisonment.

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It's understood it's been standard practice in miscarriage of justice cases since the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 came into force. But Blackley and Broughton MP Graham Stringer called on the government to scrap the practice.

He said: "It is a perverse policy to enforce payment for accommodation when he was unjustly imprisoned. The government must reverse this decision."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 this morning, Mr Malkinson said: "Somehow the prison service has lobbied the Government in the early 2000s.

"The result is that even if you fight tooth and nail and gain compensation you then have to pay the prison service a large chunk of that for so-called 'board and lodgings', which is so abhorrent to me. I am sickened by it."

But even if Mr Malkinson does receive compensation his lawyer, Emily Bolton, the director of the