A HAMPSHIRE MP has backed calls for a change in the law that means a wrongly imprisoned man must pay rent for his time locked up.

Sean Hodgson, pictured right, was freed earlier this year after it was proved he was not the man responsible for killing Southampton gas board clerk Teresa De Simone in 1979.

The 27 years he wrongly spent in jail made him the victim of one of the country’s worst miscarriages of justice.

As reported in the Daily Echo, the 58-year-old is now claiming compensation from the Home Office for spending nearly half his life inside. But he has been told he could be forced to pay back up to a quarter of it – £250,000 – to cover some of the costs of keeping him behind bars.

Julian Young, Mr Hodgson’s solicitor, said: “There is a cap of £1m compensation for ten years or more.

“If you have served 11 years it’s £1m, and if you’ve served 27 years it’s £1m, and from that they make a deduction for food and lodging, although God knows how they calculate that.”

Now Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne has joined those calling for the rules to be changed.

The Liberal Democrats’ Home Affairs spokesman said the system is unfair, because it means those who suffer longer injustices are then penalised even more.

“It seems extraordinary that the Ministry of Justice gives with one hand only to take with the other, as if Sean Hodgson had asked to be put up in a five star hotel,” he said.

“I think at any point in the 27 years when he was wrongfully imprisoned he would have been very happy if Her Majesty’s Prison Service was not providing him with shelter.

“If this is what the law says, then the law is an ass, although I cannot claim to be the first MP to point that out.”

The latest development comes after it was revealed that Mr Hodgson was admitted to hospital last week after taking heroin.

He was rushed to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after going to a drug-dealer’s home near Notting Hill and injecting the Class A drug.