Victim Support

Sunday 20 January 2013

Prisoners win big payouts for parole delays

"A backlog in sentence reviews has led to compensation claims of up to £9,000 each
Murderers, rapists and kidnappers [that will be, victims] have received compensation totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Government after complaining that delays in their parole hearings breached their human rights.

The Parole Board has admitted that a backlog of cases has forced it to pay out more than £300,000 in the past three years to compensate scores of prisoners for "distress" caused by the delays.

The total bill for compensation in 2012 was more than £100,000 and includes a £9,000 payout to a murderer who sued the authorities when they missed the deadline for deciding whether he should be freed on parole.

The Parole Board yesterday blamed the soaring costs on the increased workload caused by Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences introduced in 2003. But a Conservative MP said the figures were "an indictment" of the justice system. "The public will be astonished that people like murderers and rapists [that will be, victims] can make a profit from proceedings designed to help them get out of prison early," said the Shipley MP Philip Davies. "This is not about wrongful imprisonment. [yawn]""

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/prisoners-win-big-payouts-for-parole-delays-8458769.html