Man who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit slams police’s ‘meaningless’ apology which ‘means nothing’ to him

• Andrew Malkinson was wrongly found guilty of rape in Greater Manchester

A man who served 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit has called an apology by the police force which handled the original investigation ‘meaningless’.

Andrew Malkinson, 57, was found guilty of raping a woman in Greater Manchester in 2003 and the next year was jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years. Mr Malkinson served 10 more years because he maintained his innocence.

His conviction was quashed by senior judges at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday after DNA evidence linking another man to the crime came to light.

Greater Manchester Police issued an apology to him following the ruling – but Mr Malkinson told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: ‘The Greater Manchester Police apology… it’s meaningless to me, absolutely meaningless.

‘An apology without accountability, what is that? It’s nothing, it’s nothing, it means nothing.’

Andrew Malkinson, who served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit

Sarah, the half-sister of Andrew Malkinson, hugs him outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London after he was cleared

Mr Malkinson – pictured on Newsnight – has said the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates miscarriages of justice in England, only investigated his case after having evidence handed to them ‘on a platter’

Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Jackson issued a public apology

Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Jackson had said: ‘We are truly sorry to Mr Malkinson that he is the victim of such a grave miscarriage of justice in being convicted of a crime he did not commit and serving a 17-year custodial sentence.

‘Whilst we hope this outcome gives him a long overdue sense of justice, we acknowledge that it does not return the years he has lost. I have offered to meet with him to personally deliver this apology.’

Dominic Casciani, the BBC’s home affairs correspondent, told Radio 4 this morning it was an awful, extraordinary situation, after speaking to Mr Malkinson. 

‘Anyone who has spoken to Andrew Malkinson as I’ve had the privilege to do can only walk away thinking it raises so many questions about what happened going all the way back to 2003 which us why he says himself that although he has this conviction now quashed and he is effectively a free man in light of the law, his personal campaign and battle for justice simply doesn’t end here and also has wider implications as his barristers very clearly argued in court yesterday for the nature of justice itself – quite simply because it took so long to get to this point and that’s why I don’t think he’s going to be going away anytime soon in terms of actually pushing the issues around what happened to him.’

Mr Malkinson has said the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates miscarriages of justice in England, only investigated his case after having evidence handed to them ‘on a platter’.

Mr Malkinson tried to get the body to investigate twice previously but his bid was turned down.

He told Newsnight: ‘Basically they refused two previous applications, this third application finally, I believe they only accepted because it was handed to them on a platter. All the work had been done.

‘They’re actually, it makes me quite angry, they’re claiming all the credit for the work and it was Appeal that did the work. I am appalled by them.’

Mr Casciani told Radio 4: ‘What he argues is that it simply didn’t take seriously enough the things he was saying about his case, that it could have moved faster to effectively force GMP to disclose its files.’

He added: ‘He also wanted them to try to find DNA evidence from this poor victim to see whether or not there was something there, perhaps a sample from another man on her clothing and that’s what turned out to be there many many years later.’

Mr Malkinson appeared on Newsnight wearing a tshirt saying ‘Innocent’ 

E-fit of the suspect in the rape case (left) and a mugshot of Malkinson shortly after he was arrested (right) 

Mr Malkinson with his mother Tricia outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London after being cleared by the Court of Appeal

Andrew Malkinson, 57, (pictured outside the Royal Courts of Justice earlier this year) was jailed in 2004 after being found guilty of raping a 33-year-old mother-of-two next to the M61 in Little Hulton, near Manchester. His case was heard at the Court of Appeal 

After the ruling, Mr Malkinson told reporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice: ‘Since I was arrested in 2003, the police, the prison system and Probation Service have been calling me a liar because I denied that I committed the crime.

‘They claimed I was ‘in denial’ and made me serve an extra 10 more years in prison because I would not make a false confession.

Read more: Andrew Malkinson, who served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, slams ‘liar’ police and tells how he feared for his life in jail as he is cleared by Court of Appeal

‘I am not a liar. I am not in denial but I will tell you who is – Greater Manchester Police are liars, and they are in denial.

‘Even after this judgment today, I predict we will see them denying responsibility for what happened. We will see them stretching credulity with their excuse-making.

‘Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have been scrambling to cover up how they wrongfully convicted me for 20 years.’

Addressing the victim of the crime he did not commit, he said: ‘I am so sorry that you were attacked and brutalised that night by that man. I am not the person who attacked you but what happened to me is not your fault.’

Mr Malkinson’s mother Tricia Hose, in her mid-70s, said: ‘Now Andy’s name has been cleared, suddenly in the public eye, I am no longer a deluded mother. My son is no longer a monster.

‘But what has been done to him cannot be undone. The damage will be with him for the rest of his life and the woman who got attacked has been denied justice, just as my son was.’

Overturning Mr Malkinson’s convictions, for two counts of rape and one of choking or strangling with intent to commit rape, Lord Justice Holroyde said he could ‘leave the court free and no longer be subject to the conditions of licence’.

At the time of Mr Malkinson’s trial, there was no DNA evidence linking him to the crime and the prosecution case against him was based only on identification evidence.

But a DNA sample, held by the forensic archive, was tested and found last October to link to another man, who has since been arrested.

A decision on whether he will be charged is awaited.

The CPS and GMP said in May they would not contest the appeal.

His conviction was quashed by senior judges at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday after DNA evidence linking another man to the crime came to light

The court will decide later whether Mr Malkinson’s convictions were also unsafe because of what his lawyer Edward Henry KC called ‘deplorable disclosure failures, which mostly lay at the door of the Greater Manchester Police’.

They include police photographs of the victim’s left hand, which supported her evidence that she broke a nail scratching the face of her attacker, and the fact the two witnesses who identified Mr Malkinson had convictions for dishonesty offences and one was a heroin addict.

None of this was available to Mr Malkinson’s defence team at his trial and Mr Henry said the failure to disclose the photographs ‘deprived’ Mr Malkinson of his ‘strongest defence point – his lack of any facial injury’.

Emily Bolton, director of the legal charity Appeal, said outside court: ‘We of course welcome today’s ruling overturning Andy’s wrongful conviction but the question which should trouble everyone is why it took nearly 20 years to get here.

‘The truth is this case is an indictment of both the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

‘These so-called ‘safety nets’ in our justice system missed three earlier opportunities to put this obvious miscarriage of justice right.’

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