LONDON, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- More than 100 of Britain's most dangerous criminals could be freed by Christmas, and paid compensation, due to a government blunder, a report says.
The convicts -- including rapists, arsonists, muggers and vicious attackers -- are being held unlawfully, Britain's Court of Appeal ruled Friday, The Daily Mail reported. The government had no right to re-incarcerate them for violating parole, the court said.
Britain's Home Office, responsible for internal affairs, had incorrectly applied a change in the law to prisoners who had been sentenced when an earlier version of the law was in force, The Daily Mail reported the court as saying.
Each freed prisoner will be entitled to as much as $60,000 in compensation unless Home Secretary John Reid successfully appeals the ruling before Dec. 20, the day the court said they could be set free.
"Yet again we see the consequences of hasty and ill-thought-through legislation, which the government has got wrong," Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said.
