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Karen Adam is now the MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast

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10 March 2007

£2.3M For Prisoners' Challenge - Evening Express

by David Maddox, Evening Express

The Scottish Executive has had to fork out £2.3 million on legal aid and compensation to prisoners over human rights challenges.

And the revelation has led to renewed calls for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped.

The pay-outs have been made since human rights laws were introduced in 1999 and it is feared the cost to the tax payer will rise steeply.

Murderer Steven Leisk, who is serving life for killing schoolboy Scott Simpson, is among those who have launched a bid for compensation.

He claims his human rights have been violated because he's forced to "slop out" at Peterhead's Victorian jail.

If successful he could end up winning around £2,000.

The £2.3 million bill for legal aid and compensation payments was made in a disclosure prompted by a question from Banff and Buchan MSP Stewart Stevenson, an SNP justice spokesman.

North-east Tory MSP Alex Johnstone said he believes the cost is just the tip of the iceberg.

He said: "There are many more cases to come.

"All this goes to show that human rights legislation was a bad idea and badly thought through.

"We should just get rid of it."

Mr Stevenson said, however, he believed that the human rights laws should stay.

He blamed a lack of preparation by the Executive in making sure that the law wasn't open to challenge in prisons.

to read the original story click on Evening Express

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