GolfHos

Vincent Hickey and James Robinson were each sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder and to 10 years for aggravated burglary. Michael Hickey was sentenced to detention at her Majesty’s pleasure for the murder and eight years detention for the aggravated burglary.

He and James Robinson were also sentenced to 12 years detention and 15 years imprisonment, respectively, to run concurrently for each of two armed robberies at Chapel Hill Farm and a Tesco supermarket.

In July 1997 the convictions for the Yew Tree Farm offences were quashed when serious irregularities in the conduct of the investigation and trial came to light. The Secretary of State for the Home Department decided that the applicants and Mr Robinson had a right to compensation for miscarriage of justice....

LORD BINGHAM said that in calculating the pecuniary loss suffered by each of the applicants, the assessor considered what sums they would have earned if they had been at liberty but which they were unable to earn because they were in prison.

The assessor considered that to award them the whole of that sum would overcompensate them because they would inevitably had incurred personal living expenses to provide the necessities of life which, because they were in prison, they had not incurred.

So he deducted 25 per cent from the lost earnings as calculated to achieve the figure of what, in his judgment, the applicants had actually lost after feeding, clothing and accommodating themselves. The applicants challenged the principle of making any deduction at all.

Susie Labinjoh, solicitor for the Hickeys, said her clients were "extremely disappointed". She said that while in prison, the cousins had the stigma of being known as child killers and were subjected to appalling conditions, including their food being regularly adulterated with phlegm and glass.

Ms Labinjoh said: "They could not comprehend how anyone aware of the circumstances of their imprisonment could suggest that they profited from it in any way."