Innocent man to pay for jail ‘B&B’

A FALSELY-imprisoned Irishman will have to pay for his “bed and board” while he was behind bars, the London Court of Appeal will rule later today.

Michael O’Brien spent 11 years in a British jail before having a murder conviction quashed in 1999.

But the Home Office, after appealing a High Court decision, will withhold the equivalent of €54,800 for his “living expenses” in prison in a final compensation settlement to Mr O’Brien.

The Appeal Court’s three judges will formally deliver their decision later this afternoon. The judgment could have huge implications for other victims of a miscarriage of justice.

The decision has already been conveyed to Mr O’Brien’s legal advisers.

The 37-year-old has pledged to take the fight to the House of Lords. “I hope some common sense will prevail there,” he said last night.

While he was in prison, Mr O’Brien’s marriage ended and his Wexford-born father Jimmy died. His toddler daughter Kylie tragically died while he was on remand. “I’m still trying to develop a relationship again with my now teenage son who was a little boy when I was put in prison,” said Mr O’Brien who lives in Cardiff.

Independent assessor Lord Brennan QC had awarded Mr O’Brien £647,000 (€958,318) for his time in jail, but deducted £37,000 (€54,800) for the amount he would have spent on food and rent had he not been in prison. Mr O’Brien successfully appealed the decision in the High Court, but the Home Office sought to have the ruling overturned in the Court of Appeal.

One of three men cleared five years ago of the murder of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders, Mr O’Brien continues to battle against post traumatic stress.

The Court of Appeal’s decision will also impact on two other men cleared of a murder. Cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey were fighting a similar ruling by the Home Office after their convictions for the 1978 murder in Staffordshire of 13-year-old paper boy Carl Bridgewater were ruled unsafe.