Lorraine Allen denied compensation after being wrongly jailed for killing son

Allen loses European court of human rights case after conviction for death of four-month-old child was overturned
The European court of human rights in Strasbourg
The European court of human rights ruled Lorraine Allen had no right to compensation after being acquitted of killing her four-month-old son. Photograph: Johanna Leguerre/AFP/Getty Images

A British woman has failed to secure compensation from the government despite her conviction for killing her four-month-old son being overturned by the courts.

The European court of human rights in Strasbourg ruled that those acquitted of a criminal offence are not automatically entitled to compensation for a miscarriage of justice.

Had Lorraine Allen won it could have affected scores of other claimants. This week Barry George, who was eventually acquitted of murdering the TV presenter Jill Dando, failed in an appeal court hearing in London to obtain compensation for his time in prison.

Allen, 43, from Scarborough, had been convicted in 2000 of the manslaughter of her son and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

The conviction was based on evidence given at her trial by expert medical witnesses who testified that her son's injuries were consistent with "shaken baby syndrome".

Fresh medical evidence suggested the child's injuries could have come about in other ways. In 2005 Allen, who had by then been released from prison, succeeded in having her conviction quashed at the court of appeal on the grounds that it was unsafe. The prosecution did not apply for a retrial.

Allen's claims for compensation were dismissed. Having failed in the UK courts, she appealed to Strasbourg.

The judges said that article 6.2 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees a legal presumption of innocence, did not ensure that anyone acquitted of a criminal offence had "a right to compensation for miscarriage of justice".

The Strasbourg judges noted that the British courts "had not commented on whether the [new] evidence was indicative of her guilt or innocence. Indeed, they had consistently repeated that it would have been for a jury to assess the new evidence, had a retrial been ordered."

They added: "The decision not to order a retrial had spared Ms Allen the stress and anxiety of undergoing another criminal trial. She had not argued that there ought to have been a retrial."

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