Burglar wants compensation for 'injured feelings'

A violent burglar who called himself Lucifer and received a record-breaking sentence for his crimes won a partial victory today in his damages action against the Home Office.

Keith Bramble's trial at Middlesex Crown Court in December 1995 was told that the 6ft 4in raider believed he was evil and gloried in terrorising his wealthy victims.

He was jailed for 27 years - the longest term of imprisonment ever passed for domestic break-ins.

Judge Clarkson QC said that Bramble gloried in the terror he inspired and that his crimes were more serious than raids on banks or building societies.

Police estimated that Bramble, who dressed in black and wore a menacing "highwayman's mask", carried out more than 100 burglaries, targeting large houses in up-market areas.

He armed himself with weapons including crowbars, knives and a screwdriver.
Now 45, Bramble, who is up for parole in December, is claiming up to £15,000 damages for injury to his feelings, citing the Race Relations Act and the Human Rights Act.

Representing himself from a heavily-guarded dock at London's High Court, he contested a bid by the Home Office to "strike out" his claim on the basis that there were no reasonable grounds for bringing it.

Bramble claimed that he had been racially discriminated against in numerous ways between July 1999 and September 2002.

He alleged a delay in passing on clothes sent by his partner, the removal of papers from his cell and a failure to transfer his frozen food from Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire to Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, where he is now held.

He also claimed that his human rights were breached by his segregation in prison which exposed him to risk, and also by his genitalia being videoed during a strip search while female officers were within view.

The Home Office, which denies the allegations, said that the racial discrimination claim was brought outside the legal time limit and that the human rights claim was imprecise.

Today Judge Knight QC rejected his race claim on the basis that there was no essential connection between the allegations and racial discrimination.

He was also not satisfied that the case as put amounted to a breach of human rights.

But he said that he would not throw it out completely and would allow Bramble six weeks to reformulate his claim in writing.

The question of who should pay the near £3,000 costs of the proceedings, which started in May last year, was reserved to a later date.