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Legally Guilty, Factually Innocent?: The Case of Andy Malkinson

Updated: Feb 14, 2023



“They just seemed to fit the evidence around me”



In 2020, Andy Malkinson was released from prison after 17 years for a violent rape he insists he did not commit. He could have been freed 6 ½ years into his sentence had he admitted his guilt, but he would not confess to a crime of which he was not guilty. This stance led him to spend a clearly unacceptable further ten years inside.


While pro-bono solicitors have ascertained there was no forensic evidence linking Andy to the attack, the CCRC (Criminal Cases Review Commission, to which he has already applied twice) are still refusing to grant a new appeal. The body, which rejects the vast majority of appeals applied to it, has however started 'forensic investigations' into the case. This means that despite his release and the overwhelming evidence of innocence, he is still on the sex offender's register and barred from almost all types of work involving interacting with others.


DNA that was not Andy's was found under the victim's fingernails (she said she'd caused a deep scratch on her actual assailant's face). Andy was seen at work with no scratches on his face the next day. The police even admitted they should have disclosed information about an alleged eyewitness whom they had originally described as 'honest', but along with others involved had 16 convictions between them (including for dishonesty).


Andy has described his case as like being in a 'slow motion car crash', as the machinery started working but seemed impossible to stop. Andy's case well highlights the absolutism all too often at work in the police at the Ministry of Justice: if a person is found guilty then they are guilty, until a cumbersome and labyrinthine system decides, often many years later, that there was nothing even linking them to the event at all.


Andy's investigators have located 34 people known for violent and sexual offences who were not questioned by police at the time. Appeal, a charity supporting Andy, believes the police developed 'tunnel vision' when investigating his case.


The attack took place in 2003, the year of the New Labour Criminal Justice Bill reforms, when the ability to charge suspects on far less evidence than beforehand was being rapidly rolled out. It was also the time of the introduction of David Blunkett's catastrophic and now subsequently repealed Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences – of which 3000 people are still serving, with no idea as to their release date. Andy's sentence was however determinate.


Says Andy: “I’m telling the truth, and that’s what gave me hope all through those years.”


Andy did not match key parts of the victim’s original description of the attacker. He was three inches taller and had chest hair, whereas her attacker’s chest was described as 'hairless and shiny'. He also had prominent tattoos on his forearms when no tattoos were mentioned. The victim said she was 'more that 100%' the attacker was Andy when she picked him out in an identity parade. The CCRC say the case is 'under active review', but that 'it would be inappropriate to comment any further'.


Andy has already had an inquiry into his case stopped once by a Greater Manchester police chief. Since the DNA found at the scene was neither Andy's nor the victim's boyfriend's, it can be safely assumed that the actual assailant is still at large.


By Sean Bw Parker


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