Man wrongly jailed for raping woman in Salford could have been released a decade earlier

Andrew Malkinson’s 2003 conviction was overturned last summer after he spent years protesting his innocence.

Andrew Malkinson, a former Grimsby resident who was wrongly convicted of rape and sentenced to 17 years in prison, was “failed” by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and could have been exonerated almost a decade earlier, a review has revealed.

The CCRC “hindered my fight for justice and cost me another decade of being wrongfully imprisoned,” Malkinson said in light of the findings, calling for a complete restructuring of the body and reiterating the dismissal of its chair, Helen Pitcher.

His 2003 conviction was overturned last summer after he spent years protesting his innocence.

He and the legal aid organisation Appeal requested a review of his case by the CCRC in 2009, but at the end of the review in 2012 the Commission refused to order further forensic investigations or refer the case for appeal on cost grounds.

A second application was rejected in 2020.

Crucial DNA evidence had been available since 2007, but at that time no matches could be found in the police database.

Last year, officers arrested a new suspect on suspicion of the July 2003 rape after new DNA evidence was discovered in the case. The 48-year-old man from Exeter was released under investigation and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said a file had been forwarded to the Crown Prosecution Service for review.

Chris Henley KC, appointed by the CCRC to conduct the review, uncovered a number of “serious” failings and missed opportunities to correct the miscarriage of justice back in 2009. For example, he revealed that the panel had even considered refusing applications to refer the case to the Court of Appeal for a third time.

In his report, published on Thursday, he made nine suggestions for improvement and said: “The CCRC failed him. It was necessary for Appeal to obtain the new DNA evidence that ultimately led to the further work that led to the CCRC referral. Otherwise it would not have happened.”

“The opportunity to refer this case in 2009 was missed, and a further opportunity to re-examine the DNA evidence when the second application was received in 2018 was missed.”

Referring to Appeal’s later request to retest the samples in 2019, he said: “I have seen nothing to convince me that the CCRC would have considered a retest to be independently justified or to have had any prospect of uncovering anything new that might call into question the safety of the conviction.”

Mr Malkinson’s legal team had previously noted striking similarities between his ordeal and the earlier CCRC case of Victor Nealon, whose 1997 conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2013 after new DNA evidence emerged.

Mr Nealon’s case “undoubtedly bore similarities to Mr Malkinson’s case,” Mr Henley said, adding: “In my view, had the judgment in Nealon been properly understood and followed, Mr Malkinson’s conviction would have been overturned almost ten years earlier.”

Mr Malkinson said: “This report exposes how the CCRC obstructed my fight for justice and wrongfully imprisoned me for another decade.

“The finding that in 2022 the CCRC is considering rejecting my case for a third time, despite the compelling DNA evidence presented by my legal team, shows that the panel is thoroughly biased. It needs to be torn down and completely rebuilt.

“If Helen Pitcher and her leadership team do not resign after such a damning report, they should be sacked.”

James Burley, who led the legal aid organisation Appeal’s investigation into Mr Malkinson’s case, said the CCRC was a “broken safety net” and described the report as “absolutely damning”.

“The new Minister for Justice should appoint a new leadership team at the CCRC that is serious about eradicating wrongful convictions,” he added.

When Ms Pitcher received the results of the investigation in April, she apologised “unreservedly” to Mr Malkinson.

In its response to the report, the CCRC stated that it accepted the recommendations and had already begun implementing them.

A separate investigation into Mr Malkinson’s case, ordered by the previous government, is still ongoing.

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