JAIL COMPO FOR KILLERS
£43m in payouts to prisoners
CONVICTS CASH IN:
Triple-killer Kevan Thakrar, 30, got £800 after the prison service lost some of his property including nose-hair clippers, cranberry juice and an alarm clock. Thakrar, who is serving life-sentences for the gangland-style execution of three drug
PRISONERS claiming compensation from inside jail cost the taxpayer almost £43million over the last five years.
Inmates including killers Levi Bellfield and Kevan Thakrar received 28,150 separate payouts from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
It means that 100 payments were made to inmates each week, with each costing an average of around £1,500.
Lags claimed compensation for accidents including slips and trips, as well as for injuries when attacked by inmates or guards.
There were hundreds of claims where prisoners’ belongings had gone missing, or when they had been freed from jail a few days late.
Some even claimed for food poisoning, falling out of their bunk beds and being made to go “cold turkey” in a bid to dealers successfully claimed authorities lost the items during a prison move.
Around 200 inmates from Wandsworth jail in London were paid a total of £228,350 after being poisoned by a batch of dodgy egg sandwiches. They suffered vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach
cramps after eating the butties, made in the prison kitchen.
In 2014 Levi Bellfield, who murdered Milly Dowler, won £4,500 after being attacked in Wakefield prison. Bellfield, 49, suffered only cuts. He told pals he would give his mum cash to rent a holiday caravan in Kent. beat drug addictions. David Spencer, the research director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “It is frankly absurd that prison inmates are able to make personal injury claims from behind bars.
“When you are sent to prison you are quite rightly stripped of some of the rights enjoyed by lawabiding citizens. “If they are drug addicts then they are correctly made to go clean.
“Most people would have assumed they were not entitled to tap into the overblown personal injury industry either and will be shocked to discover that £43million of their money has been given to criminals for such trifling matters.
“Once Britain has left the European Union, it is to be hoped that this matter can be addressed and that prisoners will only be allowed to claim compensation if they have been subjected to obvious criminal offences.”
A MoJ spokesman said: “We robustly defend all claims and are successful in two thirds of cases brought against us by prisoners.
“Both the number and value of special payments to prisoners has fallen since last year. We always seek to ensure these payment are offset against outstanding debts owed to courts and/or victims.”