I was innocent - but it cost me £500,000 to prove it

Each year, thousands of people in England and Wales are accused of crimes for which they are later acquitted. While their names may be cleared, they are often left emotionally and financially devastated - as Brian Buckle, who was wrongfully convicted of sexually abusing a child, discovered first-hand.

"When I was put in the cell, I sat there all night and just cried and cried."

It was 2017 and Brian had just become a convicted sex offender, sentenced to serve 15 years in prison. A jury had found him guilty of 16 counts of historical child sex abuse.

But another trial would later acquit Brian after fresh analysis found DNA evidence used against him at his original hearing was flawed. He spent five and a half years in prison before overturning his convictions at a cost to him and his family of hundreds of thousands of pounds. His accuser is entitled to lifetime anonymity.

Brian was not eligible for legal aid - financial help from the government towards the cost of employing a legal team - because his household's disposable income was above £37,500 per year.

And so, like many defendants who are ultimately acquitted, he was left out of pocket - what is known by some campaigners as the "innocence tax".

This is when "you're innocent and you're taxed by the state - you have to pay for your defence when you shouldn't, I would say," says Stuart Nolan from the Law Society - the independent professional body for solicitors in England and Wales.

Cost of Innocence

Every year thousands of people are acquitted in court by a jury for crimes they didn't commit. This is the story of Brian and Rebecca who faced the emotional and financial impact of proving their innocence.

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The £37,500 disposable income threshold dates back to a decision in 2014 by Chris Grayling, the then justice secretary. It has not risen since its introduction.

Thousands of people are affected by this.

Each year, about 40% of those who plead not guilty in courts in England and Wales are acquitted. In the year to March 2023, 31,000 people entered not-guilty pleas and, of these, 12,000 went on to be cleared.

After facing years of criticism, the government announced in May this year that legal aid would become available for everyone in England and Wales who faces a trial at a Crown Court and applies for it - but this will not happen for up to two years.

Even after that change comes in, the Law Society questions whether there will be enough legal aid solicitors available because of the low pay this work attracts. The body says there are already legal aid deserts, places where it is impossible to find an experienced legal aid solicitor, even for those entitled to one.

And in the meantime, people like Brian are left shouldering the burden of clearing their own names - in his case, he has not yet managed to claim back any of his costs.

This is the first time Brian, now 51, has spoken about his conviction. After he arrived in prison, he says, he went into survival mode.

"You're sitting in there with real sex offenders and you hear some horrendous stories," he recalls. "You hear people gloating and it just makes your blood boil."

But Brian's wife Elaine was not prepared to accept the verdict.

Along with Brian's mum Jackie, his aunt, Daphne and his daughter Georgia, she resolved to fight for his freedom. "I said: 'I don't care what we do, how much it costs, we have got to prove his innocence,'" Elaine, 58, recalls.

Elaine thinks the police believed the allegations against her husband too quickly. That rush to get a conviction is not uncommon, says one of the UK's most eminent legal figures, former High Court judge, Sir Richard Henriques.

He says that, at times, there can be too many pressures on the police for them to independently study all the relevant evidence - and this can lead to a rushed decision to charge or prosecute.

"As soon as they find some evidence that tends to support an allegation, a charge follows and the investigative process ceases - and that is wrong," says Sir Richard, author of a damning report that heavily criticised the Metropolitan Police's handling of false accusations of sex abuse against prominent people.

In recent years campaigners have raised awareness of weaknesses in the system affecting victims of crime - especially those of sexual crime. For instance, the number of prosecutions that make it to court is tiny compared to the number of rape allegations the police receive.

But those accused of crimes and later found not guilty say the system is not working for them either. Brian was lucky to have his family behind him to fight to clear his name.

Their home in Pembrokeshire, west Wales, turned into their appeal headquarters as the women spent hours, days and weeks delving through court transcripts and researching legal and forensic specialists.

Elaine says that under the current system "you're guilty until you can prove you're innocent, and it's you who has to do the work".

The family also had to meet the costs of fighting the conviction themselves. Using inheritance money, gifts from relatives and loans, they were able to put together a fund.

Every line of the prosecution's case was studied, looking for anything that could help Brian. Private investigators and forensics experts were called upon.

A major breakthrough came during analysis of the DNA samples used in the first trial, which a forensics expert re-tested. Brian's barrister knew the findings would cast doubt on the original conviction. He successfully applied for a Court of Appeal hearing where he told the three judges the DNA could have been planted. Despite this, the Buckles had been told not to get their hopes up as this was simply a preliminary hearing. Brian watched the proceedings from prison over a video link but found them difficult to follow. Then the clerk of the court spoke to him.

"He said to me: 'Mr Buckle, do you know what's happening here now?' And I said: 'No, not really.'" The clerk said Brian would be released immediately: "The paperwork will be there within the hour. You're going home."

The judges had quashed all 16 guilty verdicts. They cited the new DNA evidence and said they had no confidence that the jury had considered each count separately. The prison officers told Brian they had never before seen an inmate released immediately as a result of such a decision.

But any hopes this was the end of Brian's fight faded a few days later when the Crown Prosecution Service announced it was seeking a retrial.

In May 2023, Brian was back in court fighting for his freedom a second time. Now, however, Brian's legal team had a much more detailed defence and access to the newly uncovered forensic evidence.

Three weeks into the trial, the jury began deliberating. After just one hour and 20 minutes, the court usher told Brian the verdicts were in.

"All I could think about at that point was, 'What if I go back to prison?'" Brian recalls. "And then the foreman [went] through the 16 counts, and every single count - not guilty."

After two trials and more than five years in prison, Brian was a free man.

But the cost of achieving this had been huge. "We've spent over £500,000," says Brian.

As well as having to pay for his legal team, Brian had lost his job as a construction manager. "I've lost my pension. All our savings are gone," he says.

Brian is far from alone in his experience.

Rebecca Whitehurst, 47, from Greater Manchester had to find tens of thousands of pounds to pay for her defence after a pupil at the school where she taught made claims that they had engaged in sexual activity and exchanged inappropriate messages.

The police showed her pages of texts she was alleged to have sent him. She says they were false.

Straight away she noticed the fonts on the texts didn't look right. "It was completely obvious," she says. "He'd created fake messages." But the police went ahead and charged her with three offences.

As the trial approached, Rebecca and her husband felt they needed a more experienced legal defence. With three weeks to go, they instructed a specialist criminal barrister and legal team to defend her, using savings to pay for them.

"Financially, it's been the best part of £50,000," she says. Rebecca adds that after she was found not guilty, she was awarded costs - but at the legal aid rate, which is much lower than the expense of instructing a defence barrister privately.

But Brian feels the biggest penalties were not financial. "My father passed away and I am convinced that it is through the stress of this," Brian says. "I missed my daughter's 18th birthday, her 21st, taking her for her first driving lesson. You can't get that back."

He also paid a price with his mental health. Brian has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by his doctor. Elaine says he is showing signs of obsessive behaviour - every morning he wakes up early and cleans the house from top to bottom.

Now, Brian tries to make every day count with his family. Without their love and support, he says, he would still be in prison.

Although he can now look to the future, he knows the toll his ordeal has taken. "I'm not the old Brian Buckle," he says.