Parole

Question

Asked by

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Bach on 1 June (WA 52), how many prisoners who consistently maintained their innocence of the crimes for which they were convicted were subsequently released on appeal, in each of the past 25 years. [HL4058]

Information is not collected centrally on the number of appellants who have consistently maintained their innocence. The number of appeals against conviction allowed by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) in each year since 1988 is shown in the table below. These are not exclusively custodial cases.

*Number of appeals allowed against conviction by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) since 1988*
	Appeals Allowed¹
1988²	223
1989	211
1990	256
1991	269
1992	299
1993	402
1994	351
1995	253
1996	250
1997	236
1998	290
1999	171
2000	150
2001	135
2002	166
2003	178
2004	240
2005	228
2006	181
2007	196
2008	188

1 The number of appeals allowed includes those where re-trials were ordered.

2 Statistics were not collated centrally prior to 1988.

Volume 711: debated on Monday 15 June 2009