Miscarriage of justice compensation

Francesca Cooney; Greg Oxley

The Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Scheme overview

The Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Scheme enables some people in England and Wales who have had their conviction overturned (or quashed) by the courts to apply for compensation.

To be eligible to apply for compensation, any of the following must apply:

the individual’s appeal was successful and it was submitted 28 days or more after their conviction in the Crown Court, or 21 days or more after sentencing for a conviction in a magistrate’s court
the individual’s conviction was overturned after it was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)
the individual has been granted a free pardon

The Secretary of State for Justice decides if a person is eligible for compensation. The amount of compensation to be paid is then decided on an individual basis by an independent assessor.

According to data published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), 591 applications for compensation due to a miscarriage of justice were received between April 2016 and March 2024.

Of the 591 applications made, 39 cases were granted compensation. Between April 2016 and March 2024, the MoJ made 35 payments totalling £2,380,700.

The amount of compensation paid in a single claim range between £250 and £500,000. The maximum amount of compensation payable is £1 million in cases where the applicant has been imprisoned for at least 10 years, or £500,000 in all other cases.

Recent changes to the Miscarriage of Justice Compensation scheme

Innocence beyond reasonable doubt

The law was changed under Section 175 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, so that payments are only awarded to people who can prove innocence beyond reasonable doubt.

A test case was brought by Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon, both of whom had served time in prison for crimes they were not guilty of. Neither was paid compensation. They took a case through the UK courts system and received a judgment from the Supreme Court in 2019 that upheld the government’s position.

They then went to the European Court of Human Rights in June 2024 and this judgment also found against them.

Further details are set out in the 2015 Library briefing Miscarriage of Justice Schemes.

Saved living costs

Until 2023, the cost of saved living costs (often referred to as ‘bed and board’) could be deducted from any compensation awarded under the Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Scheme.

The policy was designed to compensate for ‘actual loss’ and assessors calculated an amount that was considered to reflect “saved living expenses” such as rent or mortgage payments which individuals did not have to pay during their time in prison.

This policy was challenged in court but found to be lawful by the House of Lords (sitting in their judicial capacity, before the establishment of the Supreme Court) in 2007.

In August 2023, the then Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, announced changes to the scheme to “remove the possibility of “saved living costs” being deducted from an award of compensation.”

The changes were not applied retrospectively, so people released from prison previously who had received compensation for a miscarriage of justice will not receive a refund for “saved living costs” payments.

Recent high profile compensation claims

Andrew Malkinson

Andrew Malkinson was charged with rape in 2004 and was jailed for life with a minimum term of six years and 125 days. After 17 years in prison, Andrew Malkinson was released in December 2020.

In 2023, Andrew Malkinson’s conviction was overturned by the Court Appeal and it was reported in September 2024 that he had applied to the Miscarriage of Justice Compensation scheme.

Whilst awaiting the outcome of his compensation application, Andrew Malkinson said that he was receiving benefits and was “broke and living in a tent.”

In February 2025, it was reported that the MoJ had awarded Andrew Malkinson a “significant six-figure sum as an interim payment”, whilst an independent assessor determined the total amount of compensation that he should receive.

After receiving the interim payment, Andrew Malkinson said that the scheme wasn’t “fit for purpose”, and that:

no one should have to wait this long to be able to start to rebuild their life […] too many innocent people are being denied compensation altogether.

The ridiculous 2008 compensation cap (of £1 million) which hasn’t increased with inflation should be lifted, and people should automatically be accepted on to the scheme if their convictions are quashed.

Post Office Horizon IT scandal

The Post Office Horizon scandal has been described as one of the UK’s most widespread miscarriages of justice.

The Post Office introduced the Horizon computer system into branches from 1999. The system, used for accounting and stock-taking, inaccurately recorded losses and missing money in branches. The Post Office has identified 700 convictions in cases it prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 in which Horizon evidence may have featured.

Instead of the Miscarriages of Justice Compensation Scheme, f our separate compensation schemes have been established which seek to provide financial redress to those affected by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. These were established at different times and have different eligibility criteria.

As of 31 January 2025, approximately £663mn had been paid to over 4,300 claimants across four schemes:

Horizon shortfall scheme (HSS): £315mn total value of all payments including interim payments
Group litigation order scheme (GLOS): £128mn total value of all payments including interim payments
Overturned convictions (OC) scheme: £65mn total value of all payments including further interim payments
Horizon convictions redress scheme (HCRS): £156mn total value of all payments including interim payments

The speed with which compensation has been paid to people affected by the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has been criticised by some and campaigners, including Sir Alan Bates, as being too slow. In a report on the compensation schemes published on 1 January 2025, the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee said that whilst “some improvements have been made to the redress schemes and they are now moving faster”, this was “not fast enough”. The committee also argued that in addition to compensation being too slow, “the schemes are so poorly designed that the application process is akin to a second trial for victims.”

Law Commission review

In July 2022, the government asked the Law Commission to review the law relating to criminal appeals. In 2024, it was announced that the review would also consider compensation and support for the wrongly convicted.

In February 2025, the Law Commission published its provisional proposals, which included “replacing the requirement for the wrongly convicted to prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt to receive compensation so that those who can prove their innocence on the balance of probabilities will receive compensation.”

The Law Commission is running a consultation on the proposals until May 2025. The responses will be analysed and included in the Law Commission’s final report and recommendations which will be published in 2026.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own compensation schemes for miscarriages of justice.

Scotland

People in Scotland can apply for compensation for a miscarriage of justice if they have been wrongly convicted or charged with a crime. There are two compensation schemes in Scotland: the statutory scheme and the ex gratia scheme.

Statutory scheme

A person may be able to claim compensation from the statutory scheme if they’ve been convicted of a crime and:

their conviction has been reversed on appeal
their appeal was successful because a new fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice

Ex gratia scheme

A person in Scotland may be able to claim compensation if they have spent time in custody because of a wrongful charge or conviction and:

the police or other public authority did something seriously wrong that led to them being charged with, or convicted of, a crime
there were exceptional circumstances that justify the payment of compensation

There is a three-year time limit for all applications for compensation to be made.

Data is not available on how many people have applied to the compensation schemes in Scotland. However, between April 2018-19 and April 2023-24, the total amount of compensation paid to people who experienced a miscarriage of justice in Scotland was £2,057,968.

Northern Ireland

Any person (or a member of their family if deceased) can apply to the Department for Justice for compensation if they believe they have suffered a miscarriage of justice as a result of a wrongful conviction.

Certain criteria must be met to apply to the scheme:

the conviction must be overturned on appeal, or the person must have been pardoned
the ground for this should be that a new or newly discovered fact (fresh evidence) shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice
the fresh evidence must be the ground on which the appeal succeeded and must show that the person has suffered a miscarriage of justice

Limited data has been published about compensation payments in Northern Ireland. According to a Freedom of Information request by the BBC, between 2010 and 2019, more than £9 million was paid in compensation to 16 people who had had their criminal convictions overturned in Northern Ireland.

Stakeholders’ comments

Matt Foot, the co-director of APPEAL (a charity which challenges wrongful convictions) has stated that the condition that payments are only awarded to people who can prove innocence beyond reasonable doubt is “an affront to victims of miscarriages of justice and to the presumption of innocence and should be abolished.”

Toby Wilton, a solicitor representing Andrew Malkinson, has called for the compensation cap of £1 million to be increased:

It is not right that this statutory compensation scheme can only pay out a maximum of £1m to victims of serious miscarriages of justice.

This arbitrary and unfair compensation cap should, at the very least, increase with inflation in just the same way that other compensation in the English legal system.

Following concerns that Andrew Malkinson will no longer be eligible for social housing after receiving his compensation, Mr Wilton has also said that miscarriage of justice compensation payments should be “exempted when it comes to assessment for state support”, as is the case for other compensation payments, like those made to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Justice Gap, an online magazine about justice, has been highly critical of the Miscarriage of Justice Compensation Scheme stating that “the eligibility criteria are unduly strict […] which many victims of miscarriage of justice have and will fail to reach.”

The Justice Gap has also criticised the cap on compensation and the eligibility for legal aid and has called on the government to correct the