42 days or 700 days?

Read Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph in a piece entitled "Better late than never, Mr Davis", in this he points out that:

"I have reported no more shocking story in recent years than that of Ian Thornhill, an ex-policeman arrested on the orders of HM Customs & Excise for being involved in a £60 million drug-smuggling racket.

Although he was innocent - the arrogant officials had made a colossal blunder - he and his brother were locked up as Class A prisoners, with terrorists and mass-murderers. For two years they were subjected to appalling physical ill-treatment. Court hearings degenerated into farce. Eventually, because HM Customs didn't have a shred of evidence to link them to the crime (for which someone else was imprisoned), they were set free.

Although they were wholly innocent, the state had kept them in prison not for 42 days but for more than 700. Yet, by a bizarre quirk of the law, though their lives and businesses had been destroyed, they were not entitled to a penny of compensation."

Any piece of legislation that restricts the freedom of the public or gives extra powers to the state will inevitably be extended beyond that which was originally announced, although not necessarily beyond that which was originally planned.