Cyber thieves have hacked into Colin Stagg’s computer and pinched thousands of pounds from his bank account.

Mr Stagg won £706,000 compensation from the Home Office last August over his wrongful arrest and prosecution for the murder of Rachel Nickell on Wimbledon Common in 1992.

The 45-year-old, from Roehampton, said he was on holiday in the West Country when bank officials noticed a series of suspicious transactions and cancelled his card.

He told the Evening Standard: "The first I knew something was wrong was when a supermarket in Cornwall refused the card. I thought it was just a banking error.

"But when I checked they told me I had been robbed.

"There had been a lot of transactions at Thorpe Park amusement centre over the past month and they got suspicious.

"They have refunded the missing money.

“I have always been very careful with personal data.

"But a couple of months back, during a security check of my computer, the anti-hacker program found a couple of Trojan Horse viruses.

"They were destroyed but someone tried again. I suppose coming into a lot of money made me a target.”

Last December 42-year-old Robert Napper - currently in Broadmoor for the 1995 killings of a mother and her daughter - pleaded guilty to killing Miss Nickell.

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