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Posted on 01/01/2008 11:15:53 AM PST by UKrepublican
Victim of false rape claim must pay £12,500 for bed and board in jail
A man wrongly jailed when a woman cried rape has failed to prevent being charged £12,500 for his "board and lodging" while in prison.
Warren Blackwell, 38, spent three years in jail as a convicted sex attacker until his 'victim' was unmasked as a fantasist.
It was revealed he has been awarded £252,500 compensation for his lost years - but minus the estimated cost of his food and accommodation while behind bars.
Mr Blackwell said he had failed to stop the money being siphoned off after his lawyer told him there was little to be done about it.
The father-of-two, said: "It's the principle of the thing. They slam you in jail for three years and four months, brand you a sex attacker, leave your family to cope without you, then turn around and say sorry but demand £12,500 for living expenses incurred during your time inside.
"I tried to fight against it but my solicitor says the only hope of overturning the decision would be to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. I would probably use up all the compensation money on legal fees if I did that."
Mr Blackwell was jailed on the word of a woman who claims he seized her at knifepoint outside a village club early on New Year's Day 1999, marched her down an alleyway and indecently assaulted her.
She picked him out of an identity parade and a jury found him guilty, even though there was no forensic evidence and he had no previous convictions.
His wife Tanya never doubted him and an investigation by the Criminal Cases Review Commission later discovered that his accuser had invented the story.
Not only did Mr Blackwell not commit the crime, but the crime had never taken place.
It also emerged she was a serial accuser, having fabricated at least seven other allegations of sexual and physical assault against blameless men.
She kept changing her name and moving around, so police forces never realised they were dealing with the same woman.
Mr Blackwell, of Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire, was dramatically cleared at the Appeal Court in 2005, and lodged a formal bid for compensation.
It was accepted by the Government, but left to an assessor to calculate the actual amount. The assessor has now estimated that the portion of Mr Blackwell's compensation for loss of earnings - put at just over £70,000 - should be cut by 20 per cent to cover his "living expenses."
But Mr Blackwell said: "If murderers and robbers don't get charged for their time in the clanger, how come an innocent man does? It doesn't make sense and it is plain discrimination."
His solicitor, Robert Berg, said: "The adjudicator made a fair award of compensation for the suffering caused in this miscarriage of justice, however it is very unfair to charge him board and lodging.
"It is illogical that someone should have to pay for a punishment - which prison is - that should never have been given in the first place.
"Even though he was in prison, it doesn't mean there were no living expenses at his home. His family was still there, having to feed themselves and manage the home.
"So they cooked one less pork chop because he wasn't there - it's hardly a great saving, is it?"
The practice of charging "bed and breakfast" was challenged in 2007 by the Bridgewater Three, the men wrongly convicted of murdering newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater in 1978, but the principle was upheld by the House of Lords.
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This is one more of a growing number of posts about once-great Britain that make me think this is the most f*’d up country in the Western World.
The government should have tried to collect the woman first. The falsely accused man could sue her in civil court. The woman probably has no assets, so it will come to nothing. I also thought it interesting that the newspaper never gives the name of the woman. Why the protection of a criminal. Is she going to be charged with anything?
at first I thought this was going to be a story about the accuser being ordered to pay the cost but then I realized it was Britain.
What about the woman? Did she go to jail? Get fined? Why aren’t they making her pay this?
And as soon as they get 12 more muslims there, it won’t even be able to be called part of the “Western World”.
The woman was a serial accuser? What the hell was his lawyer doing the whole time to have that slip past him/her?
Just a matter of time.
For those who might not realize it, the upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, used to be independent of the Commons, and while it had far less power, it did have a certain amount of power to block or delay bad legislation.
Tony Blair basically eviscerated the House of Lords during his time in office, partly because they tried to block his bill that lowered the age of consent for homosexual acts with minors, and partly because Labour has always hated the idea of a hereditary peerage.
So, this House of Lords that denied relief from this unjust procedure was basically Tony Blair's House of Lords, appointed mostly from former Labour politicians and stooges. In other words, it's socialism all the way down now in England, with no moderating body at all. The Queen, of course, must do as she is told, and has no power to moderate anything or even openly complain about it, or she would be out of a job.
Kind of like a "instant replay review".
At any level of court action for silliness other than murder or such, each human being gets a single "bullsh!t" marker which trumps all.
When you pull it, you automatically get a 100 person jury of your peers who can vote to make you right in just this situation. Once you've used them all, you're out for a lifetime (no habitual appealers.)
But you should save them for bigtime abuses of bureaucracy like this.
Agreed.
He might want to leave well enough alone though. He might get charged for her bed and board too.
There are probably 12 new muzzies in britain every second. Or something like that.
WTF?!
Looks to me like they’re desperate to punish him no matter what.
“The woman was a serial accuser? What the hell was his lawyer doing the whole time to have that slip past him/her?”
From the article:
“She kept changing her name and moving around, so police forces never realised they were dealing with the same woman.”
Yep, I sure missed that one.
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