Andrew Malkinson could have been released a decade earlier says damning report

Andrew Malkinson who spent 17 years in jail after being wrongly convicted of a Salford rape was "failed" by the miscarriage of justice review body and could have been cleared ten years earlier, a damning report has found.

A 105-page report by Chris Henley KC, today found that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) could have spared Mr Malkinson a decade of wrongful imprisonment if it had not “missed” the opportunity to send his case back to the Court of Appeal in 2009, when DNA evidence made clear “he might be innocent”.

Mr Malkinson said today: "The CCRC “obstructed my fight for justice and cost me an extra decade wrongly imprisoned." He said in light of the findings thered should be a complete overhaul of the body and repeated demands for its chairwoman Helen Pitcher to be sacked.

Today it was reported that new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was raising questions about Helen Pitcher’s position in the wake of the report.

Having already spent six months on remand, Mr Malkinson was convicted by a majority of 10 to 2 on February 10th, 2004 at Manchester Crown Court. He was not released until 2020 because he refused to say he was guilty. In July 2023, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.

The victim in the case was a 33-year-old woman who was stalked for half a mile then snatched and dragged down a motorway embankmet off Cleggs Lane in Little Hulton and brutally raped in the early hours of July 19th 2003.

Mr Malkinson and the legal charity Appeal applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2009 but at the conclusion of its review in 2012 the commission refused to order further forensic testing or refer the case for appeal amid concerns over costs. A second application made in 2018 was rejected