The family of a man hanged 49 years ago for a murder...

The family of a man hanged 49 years ago for a murder he did not commit received £1.4m in compensation. Mahmood Mattan, a Somali, had been executed in Cardiff jail in 1952 after being convicted of slitting the throat of Lily Volpert, a pawnbroker and moneylender. The family launched a campaign 10 years ago to get Mattan's name cleared. The compensation paid by the Home Office is the first award to a family of a person hanged for a crime they did not commit. Mattan, 28, was arrested within hours of the murder in March 1952. Despite having alibis backed up by four separate witnesses, he was convicted at Glamorganshire assizes in Swansea in July 1952. An appeal was rejected and he was executed in September. But in the 46 years between his execution and exoneration new evidence emerged that the seaman, who only spoke halting English, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice inflicted by a racist police force and intolerant community. Even his defence lawyer had called him "a half child of nature, a semi-civilised savage".