Victor Nealon’s lawyers, who seek to challenge MoJ refusal to pay, say such victims might only get compensation if someone else is convicted

Victims of serious miscarriages of justice will find it harder than ever to receive compensation from the government in the wake of a key test case, lawyers and campaigners are warning. Lawyers claim that those wrongly convicted may now only receive compensation if someone else is convicted of the crime of which they were accused.

Victor Nealon, aged 53, a former postman, was convicted of attempted rape in Redditch in Worcestershire in 1996. He served 17 years, 10 years more than his recommended tariff, because he continued to protest his innocence.

A year ago in December 2013 his conviction was quashed after fresh DNA evidence, taken from the blouse and underwear of the victim, pointed to “an unknown male” as responsible for the crime. But now Nealon, who came out of prison penniless, has been told that he is not entitled to any compensation, although others wrongly convicted in the past and who served similar long sentences, have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The Ministry of Justice is declining to compensate him on the grounds that his innocence has to be proved “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Victor Nealon was wrongly convicted of attempted rape and served 17 years. His conviction was quashed in December 2013. Photograph: PR

An initial appeal against the decision through a judicial review was unsuccessful, so now Nealon’s legal team is seeking a fresh hearing in 2015 to challenge the refusal.

“The justice department are being completely resistant to offering any compensation,” said Mark Newby, Nealon’s lawyer, who commissioned the DNA tests that led to his client’s freedom. “They are making it virtually impossible for anyone to be compensated unless someone else is convicted of the crime. The Criminal Cases Review Commission have apologised to us for the delay in taking on his case in the first place. It seems that everyone is very sorry but no one wants to compensate him.”

An MoJ spokesperson said: “There is no automatic entitlement to compensation but every application is considered on its merits. It would be inappropriate to comment on the details of any individual’s case.”

Nealon said he was determined to pursue the action for compensation as his life was ruined by the conviction. “I am going to keep on fighting for this,” he said. He was homeless and had only £46 to live on when he first emerged from prison.

Applications for compensation following the quashing of convictions are currently considered under the Criminal Justice Act of 1988 and the justice secretary is responsible for deciding whether compensation is payable. Since 2008, payments have been capped at £1m in respect of cases involving detention of 10 years or more, and £500,000 in all other cases. An independent assessor decides on the exact sum.

In 2014, the government introduced new legislation providing, for the first time, a statutory definition of what constitutes a miscarriage of justice for the purposes of determining eligibility for compensation. This definition now means that compensation is only paid where the new fact which led to the quashing of an applicant’s conviction shows beyond reasonable doubt that they did not commit the offence.

At his appeal in 2013, Nealon’s barrister, Peter Willcock QC, argued that had the DNA evidence been provided at the original trial it would have been “explosive”. The prosecution argued that the DNA evidence was neutral as samples could have been from other sources, such as the shops where the victim bought the clothes.

The challenge to the new compensation rules come at a time when there have been fresh developments in two other high profile cases, both involving nurses, which lawyers and campaigners claim are also miscarriages of justice.

Last month, BBC’s Panorama programme came up with fresh medical evidence on behalf of Colin Norris, who was jailed for life in 2008 for the murders of four patients in a Leeds hospital. A juror in his trial, when shown the new evidence by the BBC, said that he would not now have voted to convict Norris.

The case of Benjamin Geen, jailed in 2006 for 30 years for murdering two patients and seriously harming 15 others, is also coming under renewed scrutiny. His legal team is now arguing that the respiratory arrests suffered by his patients were not the “extremely rare events portrayed at his trial”. Both men claim that no murders took place and that there is a medical explanation for the deaths.