CREGAN’S £311K AID STORM
POLICE killer Dale Cregan has been awarded almost £311,000 in taxpayer-funded legal aid – including money for “mental health” battles in prison.
Documents show Cregan, 35, racked up huge bills for solicitors and barristers at his murder trial.
And he has since been awarded public money to hire solicitors for advice on mental health cases behind bars.
Earlier this year former prison officer Neil Samworth alleged Cregan had “faked” mental health problems to get transferred from prison to a cushy life in a maximum security hospital. The one-eyed killer spent five years at Ashworth psychiatric unit in Merseyside before being sent back to jail.
It emerged he has been given public handouts for legal advice about his mental health on at least two occasions since being jailed in 2013 for shooting Greater Manchester Police officers Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone.
Nicola’s father Bryn, who used to work as a prison officer, said last night: “I would question the use of legal aid for those sort of facilities when they are available in prison. He was given a whole life tariff and by the nature of the murders he’s committed and being locked up for rest of his life, he’s bound to have mental health issues. But so what?
“People have to look at the consequences of their actions.”
The bills come on top of vast sums of public money awarded for Cregan’s lawyers at his murder trial.
The notorious criminal was on the run for the murders of David Short, 46, and his son Mark, 23, when he shot dead PCs Hughes, 23, and Bone, 32, in 2012.
He lured them to a house in Hattersley, Tameside, with a fake 999 call. The freedom of information response shows how solicitors at the crown court cost £142,271.87.
Cregan’s barristers cost a further £121,126.92, while other costs added another £45,188 to the bill.
Solicitors who represented him at the police station after his arrest cost a further £566.96, according to the FOI response.
The Legal Aid Agency said in civil legal aid cases applicants have to satisfy means tests.
A spokeswoman said: “Anyone facing a crown court trial is eligible for legal aid subject to a strict means test.”