unclebuck

Title should read £80,000.....

Another masterpiece of insanity from our illustrious home secretary –

"What do you give someone who’s been proved innocent after spending the best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn’t commit?
An apology, maybe? Counselling? Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in British prisons."

http://www.sundayherald.com/40592

You have to laugh at the insane logic of it.

UB

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

How bloody stupid that sucks!

what would scooby do

Another Blunket piece of insanity - someone should poke his eyes out.. oh hang on.. on second thoughts..

boxst

Hello

Charging the people who are guilty is fine .... but those who have been imprisoned wrongly is just stupid.

Steve.

IanT

Blimey ... that's sick.

Although I assume this is money that just gets deducted from the compensation they are given on being released (i.e. it's a re-assessment of the formula used to determine how much they get?)

Or is it worse than that?

Ian.

darlodge

That is totally shocking

I thought was was goign to be about the latest DVLA tatics for punchasing non car tax payers. You come out of prision and are then present with a bill for unpaid car tax



Darren

Fatman

That's disgusting. Words (otherwise) fail me.

Fatman

... I wonder what would happen if the falsely-imprisoned individual then presented the government with an invoice for their last annual salary multiplied by the number of years detained?

IanT

... I wonder what would happen if the falsely-imprisoned individual then presented the government with an invoice for their last annual salary multiplied by the number of years detained?

Ummm, yes, that's exactly what happens anyway (lost and projected earnings are taken into consideration when deciding how much compensation to pay the victims). Hence my question above.

Ian.

LG John

I'm not a criminal but I assure you if I was imprisoned for something I've not done and then 'charged' for the privillage of food and board during my stay in prison I WOULD be a criminal when I came out!!!!

Fatman

Is it? Fair enough. I've never looked into the method of calculating compensation payments. What you say does make sense, though. I sincerely hope that this proposal sinks without trace VERY quickly.

IanT

Yeh, very clever piece of journalism that omits to mention that the chap who was "charged" £80k probably got £80k less out of, say, a £600k compensation award.

But I agree, bloody outrageous and insensitive, even if the charge is just another line-item on an assessment sheet

Ian.

Steaming Wizard

Another piece of political wizardry!

You would think that the government would want all the support they can get!

OllyK

I guess the Government are thinking well, they weren't paying a mortgage while they were inside and they weren't off to Tesco every week and we were funding this while they were in prison.

I could live with that if...and only if:
1) You got your salary times the number of years inside adjusted for inflation.
2) If you lost your house, the government replaced it with an equivalent one
3) You got £250K per year / per child for missing them growing up.
4) Each child got compensated for the loss of their parent
5) If your partner is still waiting for you then they are compensated for X years of hardship due to you not being their to support them financially, emotionally and to help with kids etc.
6) Say £500K per year for emotional stress
7) £200K per year for loss of personal liberty and so forth.

In other words if the typical compo payout was £40-50 million, then I would be OK about paying back the governement £30K.

The trouble is you get the basic payout as far as I can see, how can you compensate somebody for loosing 25 years of their life?

StickyMicky

unbelivable

ajm

It is ridiculous, another example of extracting money from the innocent whilst paying for criminals, scum and lazy people. We really need to vote these jokers out asap!

What happens if he refuses to pay for his stay in prison, gets convicted of it and gets sent back to prison? If he wins an appeal and gets released again will he owe them more?

OllyK

Trouble is these muppets think because they have such a big majority they are safe and it will take a number of elections for that majority to eb away. As a result they bring in more and more stealth taxes and stupid ideas to try and fund their over spending. Labour do this every time (guess not too many people on here remember the last Labour government before this one), spend spend spend, oops we can't pay for it, bring in some more taxes.

Look at Education. Budget of £22 billion and half of that, yes half goes on administration, only £11 billion makes it to the schools. No wonder the Tories claim they can improve schools etc and reduce tax. The civil service is a bohemouth of red tape that needs to be culled.

Dracoro

I can predict the response of Blunket/HO/etc. when challenged on this issue - 'sorry, we don't comment on individual cases'

Big C

Shocking. Absolutely shocking.

C

milo

but would YOU take £520k for 25 years of your life?

the article (as with most any form of journalism) omits that point for added shock value (its largely the priciple thats a slap in the face - what's next, being charged for wasting police time if you're unfairly arrested and released?).

as olly says above... the amount should be closer to £50m... and even then there's some things that just can't be compensated for. the only problem with that approach is i could see appeals NEVER being granted, as the cost would be too great, and you'll end up with innocents having to serve the full sentence with no compensation just to save money.

a reform of the legal system is the only way.

Brendan Hughes

Interesting. How does unclebuck's viewpoint on this differ from his post in CWE where he suggests that the British Guantanamo Bay ex-residents are not wanted in this country, despite not even being charged with any offence, and the solicitor representing them is a disgrace?

Be clear, UB, are you for jailing people without justice, or against it?

IanT

Well, yes, that's exactly why I said it was a clever piece of journalism (the art of taking things out of context to prove a point through fair means or foul).

A little bit like you did with part of my post, eh?

Ian.

milo

yes, there is irony there somewhere

my point is more that it doesn't matter that the journalists are taking things out of context. the very fact that the govt would ask (expect?) released innocents to even pay back £1 out of a £50m settlement is to me a huge slap in the face.

IanT

Yes, absolutely agree. If I were put away for 25 years I'd sue the ***** off them.

I read somewhere that once you deduct the loss of projected earnings from the compensation, the amount that's left (I assume to cover "sorry we locked you up") is something derisory like £13,000 per annum. Hmmm ...

Ian.

Butkus

This is enough to make you cry. It really is. I hate these people that are coming up with these stupid things. Please tell me this isn't happening.

CrisPDuk

David Blunkett: walking, talking proof that cripples can be c*nts too

Ringpeas

It's not the first of April is it?

Charge the guilty for there time behind bars, now that would be OK.
But this, roll on election time.

lmsbman

Does this mean that if I was sent to prison when I knew I was innocent, I could ask to be put up in the Hilton. If I've got to pay for it, I might as well have a bit of luxury