Supreme Court Favours Jail Compensation

A Sinn Fein MLA and a Co Londonderry journalist have won the right to claim compensation for the time they spent in prison in the 1970s, wrongfully charged with murder.

The landmark ruling by the UK Supreme Court said the test for payments to those wrongfully convicted should be redefined.

Raymond McCartney and former Derry Journal reporter Eamonn MacDermott had two previous bids for compensation refused.

They took their case to the highest court in the United Kingdom and five of the nine judges on the panel found in the men's favour to claim compensation.

President of the Supreme Court, Lord Phillips, said the new test should ensure innocent defendants are not precluded from obtaining compensation because they cannot "prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt".

The Supreme Court ruling could have implications for dozens of former prisoners in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Ministry of Justice said it welcomed the Supreme Court decision.

Raymond McCartney and Eamonn MacDermott were convicted of murdering RUC officer Patrick McNulty in Derry in 1977.

Mr McCartney was also found guilty of murdering DuPont Managing Director, Jeffrey Agate in the city a week later and spent 17 years in prison.

While in prison he became a 'commanding officer' for the IRA in the Maze and spent 53 days on hunger strike.

Eamonn MacDermott spent 15 years in prison, later working for the Derry Journal.

Speaking to the Journal after the judgement was handed down, Mr MacDermott said compensation couldn't give him back the years he lost in prison, but added that he felt "vindicated".

Mr MacDermott commented: "I think a lot of people find it very hard to believe that you could spend years in prison and not be entitled to some sort of compensation.

"I think this is the first time the Supreme Court has actually dealt with the question of what constitutes a miscarriage of justice, so it will be interesting to see what way they phrase it and what way they deal with it.

"How narrow or how broad the definition is remains to be seen."

Sinn Féin MLA Raymond McCartney also commented on the ruling and said that it was a "total vindication" of his and Mr McDermott's contention of innocence all along.

Mr McCartney commented: "It is also a heavy indictment of what passed for a policing and justice system in the North of Ireland throughout the conflict.

"After many years of campaigning and successfully challenging the judgement of the Northern Courts we were finally vindicated and the original findings were quashed.

"But even though the Courts here found in our favour, the vindictiveness of the British Establishment towards Irish Republicans could not handle the fact that its courts in effect found it guilty of a miscarriage of justice and the British Secretary of State refused an application for compensation.

"Now the highest Court in the British Judicial System has over ruled the political decision of the British SOS and totally vindicated our position," he said.

The Supreme Court ruling means people will receive statutory compensation under section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 if the Justice Secretary accepts that a new fact has so undermined the evidence against them "that no conviction could possibly be based upon the evidence in their cases".

Another man involved in the Supreme Court case on Tuesday, Andrew Adams, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who spent 14 years in jail after being wrongly convicted of murder, lost his appeal. The court found Mr Adams did not fall within this new definition.

(JG/BMcC)