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A young man who spent eight years in prison before his murder conviction was dramatically quashed should not get a ­penny in compensation, the Court of Appeal ruled this week.

Sam Hallam was released after fresh evidence forced senior judges to admit his conviction was “unsafe”.

His supporters expected the authorities to award a bumper payout for his ordeal – but the Ministry of Justice has refused.

On Monday, Master of the Rolls Justice Dyson, Sir Brian Leveson and Lord Hamblem dismissed an appeal from his legal team.

They ruled that, as innocence was not proven “beyond reasonable doubt”, Mr Hallam could not be considered a “miscarriage of justice” victim.

His solicitor, Marcia Willis-Stewart, from Birnberg Peirce, told the Tribune: “We do think there is a strong public interest argument here. We are committed to taking this to the Supreme Court.”

Born and raised on the Pitfield estate, on the border between Islington and Hoxton, Mr Hallam was in October 2004 found guilty of the brutal mob murder of Essayas Kassahun on the St Luke’s estate, near Old Street. There was no DNA or CCTV evidence against him and dozens of people had said he was not there.

The original prosecution case was based on two major factors: Mr Hallam’s alibi was disputed by one of his friends – leading to accusations in court that he [Mr Hallam] had lied – and his identification by two of the murder witnesses.

Aged 24 at the time of the Old Bailey jury’s verdict, he was in prison for most of his 20s and missed the death of his father.

TV actor Ray Winstone brought Sam’s plight to national attention with a documentary film, and Patrick Maguire – himself wrongly imprisoned over the Guildford Four bombings – also campaigned vociferously for his release.

The Justice for Sam Hallam group staged annual open-top bus events around Islington each year. The Tribune visited Sam in prison with his mother on his 28th birthday and has followed the case throughout his eight-year ordeal, and also following his release.

He has spoken about the terrible toll of his conviction, the impact on his mental health and how he has struggled to readjust to life after prison. He has a son named Thierry, after the legendary Arsenal footballer who lifted the Premier League trophy in the year of the murder.

In July 2011, solicitors began working on a new appeal and discovered evidence that had been missed in the original trial. Two witnesses of the murder were found to have identified “the wrong Sam”, based on rumour, and were said to have “colluded” before making their statements to police.

Crucially, Mr Hallam’s mobile phone – which was not examined by prosecution or defence lawyers during his trial – contained time-stamped photographs showing he was in a pub around the time of the murder.

The dismantling of the key trial evidence was enough for a Court of Appeal judge to release Mr Hallam in 2012, triggering joy among his supporters in the public gallery. There were jubilant scenes on the steps of the High Court and raucous celebrations by friends and family back home on the estate pub in Pitfield Street.

At the time, few realised the significance of the court rejection of a request from defence barrister Henry Blaxland, QC, for a statement about Mr Hallam’s innocence.

His compensation challenge has exposed a failing in the Criminal Justice Act, introduced by Charles Clarke in 2003, according to the judgment.

It says that “the term miscarriage of justice... was not defined in the statute when it was originally enacted”. The grey area over the term – the bar for getting compensation – had led to a series of cases “in which the courts sought to interpret the meaning”.

Following years of confusion, a new definition of miscarriage of justice was inserted into legislation in Parliament in March 2014. It defined miscarriage of justice as occurring only “if the newly discovered fact shows beyond reasonable doubt that the person did not commit the offence”.

Lawyers had combined the Hallam challenge with another miscarriage of justice case, about a man whose rape conviction was quashed after 17 years in prison. They argued the new legislation governing compensation payouts to miscarriage of justice victims in the European Convention on Human Rights jarred with the new definition in the Criminal Justice Act.

But the judgment says the “the case of Mr Hallam well illustrates the difference between proof of innocence” and how “a new fact does not prove innocence”, adding: “The new evidence did not prove the alibi was true” despite it “providing cogent evidence to suggest the identification [by the two witnesses] was wrong”.