An increase in compensation due to a man who spent 38 years in jail on a murder conviction that was recently overturned “does not go far enough”, his lawyer has said.
Peter Sullivan, 68, has been described as the victim of Britain’s longest-running miscarriage of justice, having been jailed in 1987 for the brutal murder of 21-year-old Diane Sindall in Birkenhead.
The Ministry of Justice is to raise the amount paid to people wrongly jailed for more than a decade to £1.3m from £1m.
But Mr Sullivan’s lawyer Sarah Myatt said the increase was only half the rate of inflation since the £1m cap came in in 2008.
Inflation since the cap’s introduction in 2008 stands at 68%, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Ms Myatt said “[the increase is] a very small step forward”, adding: “I don’t think it’s enough at all.”
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said the increase would create “a fairer and better justice system”.
Mr Sullivan was freed when his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in May, after new testing of preserved semen samples produced a DNA profile that pointed to another, unknown, man.
Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said “unfortunately” searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.
Ms Myatt said Mr Sullivan had “lost 38 years of his life, nearly four decades of his life”.
“There is not any amount that would be able to compensate somebody for that.”
She said the amount victims are eligible for should be “sufficient to mean that somebody can then continue the rest of their life in utmost comfort”.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “Fairness is the ideal that underpins our justice system. Where it has failed to meet that ideal, victims of devastating miscarriages of justice must be able to rebuild their lives.
“This uplift will ensure victims are compensated for the crimes they did not commit and the years they cannot get back.”
Once eligible, the level of compensation will be decided by an independent assessor.
Andrew Malkinson, 58, from Manchester, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape crime he did not commit, has described the proposed cap increase as “insulting”.
