KConnor56
08-22-2002, 03:27 PM
The British have a policy where prison wardens can hand out extra time to Irish prisoners for protesting while they are imprisoned. This policy has come under fire, & now this prisoner is going to try to get compensation for being a victim of this policy.--------Ken
Bomber Sues for Being Kept in Jail Too Long
By Martin Breen
A convicted republican bomber is to sue the government for keeping himbehind bars for two years too long.Willie Gallagher could be entitled to a payout of around Pounds 66,000after being kept in jail for an extra 24 months because of hisinvolvement in prison protests.He is demanding Pounds 90 for each of his 733 extra days inside. And if his case against the government is successful, it could lead to claims for millions of pounds from hundreds of republican prisoners. Many were kept behind bars after
losing remission for their part in prison protests and hunger
strikes. But a recent European Court ruling declared this illegal.Former INLA inmate Gallagher, who was jailed in 1975 for bombing a British Legion Hall, is claiming he should have been freed in March 1981. He wasn't actually released until April 1983. He told the News of the World: "I have contacted a solicitor about taking a case after this European Court ruling. I was kept in prison for an extra two years for protests I was involved in. I was also punished for going on hunger strike."A prisoner in England got Pounds 90 for every extra day he was kept in and for me that would be Pounds 90 every day for over two years."This new law from the European Court will have to be tested to see if it is retrospective. At the time people accepted at face value that they had lost remission but things have now changed."In 1998 Gallagher, now a spokesman for the Irish Republican Socialist Party, was chosen to announce the INLA ceasefire. Last month the Prison Service began to free more than 900 inmates
across the UK, including at least ten in Ulster, in the wake of the human rights ruling that governors' punishment hearings were illegal.
The Home Office has been bracing itself for compensation claims which could run into millions of pounds from prisoners who have had time added to their sentences for each disciplinary offence they have committed inside jail. About 80,000 "added days" are imposed on inmates by governors each year. Jail governors are now considering new punishments such as loss of association hours, the time where inmates are allowed to mix with each other. The Strasbourg court ruled last month that it was a breach of
the right to a fair trial under article six of the European
Convention on Human Rights for a prison governor to sit as "judge and jury" in internal prison disciplinary hearings for offences that would be considered criminal outside prison.
John Dickinson, the solicitor who took the case to Strasbourg on behalf of two British prisoners, Lawrence Connors and Okechukwi Ezeh, said that there were grounds for compensation claims. He said: "Under English law wrongful imprisonment often results in compensation and it would be appropriate for it to be available to prisoners who suffer such detention."
Bomber Sues for Being Kept in Jail Too Long
By Martin Breen
A convicted republican bomber is to sue the government for keeping himbehind bars for two years too long.Willie Gallagher could be entitled to a payout of around Pounds 66,000after being kept in jail for an extra 24 months because of hisinvolvement in prison protests.He is demanding Pounds 90 for each of his 733 extra days inside. And if his case against the government is successful, it could lead to claims for millions of pounds from hundreds of republican prisoners. Many were kept behind bars after
losing remission for their part in prison protests and hunger
strikes. But a recent European Court ruling declared this illegal.Former INLA inmate Gallagher, who was jailed in 1975 for bombing a British Legion Hall, is claiming he should have been freed in March 1981. He wasn't actually released until April 1983. He told the News of the World: "I have contacted a solicitor about taking a case after this European Court ruling. I was kept in prison for an extra two years for protests I was involved in. I was also punished for going on hunger strike."A prisoner in England got Pounds 90 for every extra day he was kept in and for me that would be Pounds 90 every day for over two years."This new law from the European Court will have to be tested to see if it is retrospective. At the time people accepted at face value that they had lost remission but things have now changed."In 1998 Gallagher, now a spokesman for the Irish Republican Socialist Party, was chosen to announce the INLA ceasefire. Last month the Prison Service began to free more than 900 inmates
across the UK, including at least ten in Ulster, in the wake of the human rights ruling that governors' punishment hearings were illegal.
The Home Office has been bracing itself for compensation claims which could run into millions of pounds from prisoners who have had time added to their sentences for each disciplinary offence they have committed inside jail. About 80,000 "added days" are imposed on inmates by governors each year. Jail governors are now considering new punishments such as loss of association hours, the time where inmates are allowed to mix with each other. The Strasbourg court ruled last month that it was a breach of
the right to a fair trial under article six of the European
Convention on Human Rights for a prison governor to sit as "judge and jury" in internal prison disciplinary hearings for offences that would be considered criminal outside prison.
John Dickinson, the solicitor who took the case to Strasbourg on behalf of two British prisoners, Lawrence Connors and Okechukwi Ezeh, said that there were grounds for compensation claims. He said: "Under English law wrongful imprisonment often results in compensation and it would be appropriate for it to be available to prisoners who suffer such detention."