AN EAST Lancashire man who spent 18 years behind bars for a double murder he didn't commit has been told to expect to lose part of his compensation -- to cover his board and lodgings while in jail!

Peter Fell, 42, has been told by lawyers preparing his bid for miscarriage of justice compensation that the Home Office is now reducing the 'loss of earnings' element by up to 25 per cent to cover living expenses funded by the state.Mr Fell, who has family living in Great Harwood and Padiham, sat through the three days of legal argument over the case in March.

Today, he said: "I am disgusted by what the judges have decided.

"How can they even consider charging me for being in prison? No one can begin to imagine what it is like to lose the best part of 20 years of your life for something you didn't do.

"I'm lost for words about this. I really thought the judges would get it right and see that there is absolutely nothing right about charging innocent people for being looked after in prison."

Yesterday, the same firm of lawyers representing Mr Fell -- London company Hodge, Jones and Allen -- also represented two of the men wrongfully convicted of the 1979 killing of paperboy Carl Bridgewater.

Last year, the pair, who had their convictions quashed in 1997, successfully appealed against an independent assessor's ruling that the "loss of earnings" element in awards to cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey should be reduced by 25 per cent to take account of the living expenses they had not incurred during their imprisonment.

That ruling was overturned by a High Court judge, but the Home Office-appointed assessor, Lord Brennan QC, appealed on the grounds that his original decision was "lawful and reasonable".

Appeal court judges yesterday backed the Home Office, who will now start drawing up Mr Fell's compensation package, which has been on hold throughout the Bridgewater proceedings because of the precedent the result would set.

Mr Fell, who grew up in a children's home in Great Harwood, was cleared in 2001 of murdering Ann Lee and Margaret Johnson.

He was convicted in 1983 for the double murder, on Aldershot Common, Hampshire, close to where he had been based with the Army.

He was released "without a stain on his character" by appeal court judges sitting in London after they were told jurors at the original case had not been informed of vital information.

Mr Fell initially admitted the killings when interviewed by police, but jurors were not told that at the time he was suffering from a condition which made him a "pathological confessor".

Since his release in 2001, Mr Fell, who now lives in Surrey and married a woman he met at a church while living in London in 2002, has survived on support from friends and also on a six-figure interim payment from the Home Office.

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope, who led the campaign to release Mr Fell, said: "This is another pathetic case of mad judge disease. I'm appalled by it. Peter has been let down by the law at every turn.

"He refused to say he was guilty while in prison, despite being told he'd be released sooner if he did.

"Then, when he was released and found not guilty, there was no support to help him adapt.

"It is the most incredible kick in the teeth."

Susie Labinjoh, from Hodge, Jones and Allen, said the Hickeys felt it was "an outrage."

She added: "We are extremely disappointed by this palpably unfair decision."

Cardiff man Michael O'Brien, also wrongly convicted, had his payout reduced during the same appeal yesterday.

Mark Leech, editor of The Prisons Handbook, commented: "It has to be the sickest of all sick jokes - can you imagine Terry Waite getting a bill for the living expenses he saved during his five-year internment?

"What was provided to Mr O'Brien while in prison was required to be provided by law. Seriously, who would have chosen to sleep on a prison mattress for a decade unless they had to?"

Mr O'Brien has vowed to take his fight about the "saved living expenses" to the House of Lords - a path which could be open to Mr Fell.