A Supreme Court ruling that widens the definition of a miscarriage of justice has been hailed as a step in the right direction by campaigners.

Judges ruled this week that victims of a miscarriage of justice did not have to prove their innocence to receive compensation.

The court heard there had been fresh evidence to clear both Raymond McCartney and Eamonn MacDermott on appeal, after the pair had spent 17 and 15 years respectively in jail for murder.

It was decided by a majority of 5-4 sitting judges that they were wrongly refused compensation after their convictions had been overturned.

One of the judges, Baroness Hale, said: ‘Innocence as such is not a concept known to our criminal justice system.

'We distinguish between the guilty and the not guilty.

‘A person is only guilty if the state can prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt… if it can be conclusively shown that the state was not entitled to punish a person, it seems to me that he should be entitled to compensation for having been punished.

‘He does not have to prove his innocence at his trial and it seems wrong in principle that he should be required to prove his innocence now.’

The decision could mean compensation claims against the Ministry of Justice for a number of people wrongly convicted.

Campaign group Justice, which lobbied on behalf of a change in the law, welcomed the decision.

Eric Metcalfe, Justice director of human rights policy, said: ‘The presumption of innocence is a basic human right. So too is the right to compensation for being wrongly convicted in certain cases.

‘Not every wrongly convicted person who deserves compensation will benefit from today’s ruling, but at least the innocent will not have to prove their innocence in order to be eligible.’

Roger Smith, director for Justice, added: ‘Numbers who have claimed compensation have gone down in recent years from over 20-a-year, to just one last year.

‘At one level this was a grubby instance of the government trying to save money – what we’ve seen is an advance on that situation.’