July
27, 2023
The
United States has a long history of wrongfully convicting and imprisoning
people only to release them after years in prison after new evidence
emerges. It has just happened in the
U.K. too.
Since
1989, the U.S. courts have freed 225 innocent people from years — sometimes
decades — in prison after new evidence from DNA testing overturned their
wrongful convictions. It happens in Britain too.
On
Wednesday Andrew Malkinson, 56, walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice in
London after the Appeals Court overturned his conviction after DNA testing
showed another man was the rapist.
Consortium
News was outside the courthouse when Malkinson emerged as a free man. Here is
his dramatic statement, as well as remarks from his mother and his
attorney. Malkinson said he was given an
additional ten years in prison for refusing to make a false confession.
‘They
Didn’t Believe Me’
Malkinson
said the police destroyed evidence in the case — most of the clothing of the
rape victim. A piece of her clothing was eventually recovered and tested. Malkinson said the traumatized rape victim,
possibly with the “help” of the police wrongly picked him out of police lineup.
Malkinson
said:
“I
came to the police station in 2003. I told the officers I was innocent – they
didn’t believe me.
I
came to the Crown Court in Manchester in 2004. I told the jury I was innocent –
they didn’t believe me.
I
came to this appeal court in 2006 and told them I was innocent – they didn’t
believe me.
I
applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which is supposed to
investigate miscarriages of justice and told them I was innocent.
They
didn’t investigate and they didn’t believe me. Not once, but twice.
Today
we told this court I was innocent and finally they listened, but I have been
innocent all along for each of those 20 years that came before today. Nothing that
any police officer, court or commission said about me since 2003 changed that
reality.
You
are here to gather news, that declaration from the bench behind me is not news
to me. When a jury finds you guilty when you are innocent, reality does not change.
You know you did not commit the crime. But all the people around you start
living in a false fantasy universe and treat you as if you are guilty: the
police, prison officers, probation officers, prisoners, journalists, judges.
As
a minority of one you are forced to live their false fantasy. On August 2,
2003, I was kidnapped by the State. It has taken nearly 20 years to persuade my
kidnappers to let me go.
Seventeen
years, four months and 16 days of that time was spent in prison.
All
that time the real preparator, the real dangerous person was free.”
“You’re
asking an innocent man to make a false confession – a false confession in the
guise of therapy,” said Malkinson. “They said, ‘There’s no other way here.
You’ll probably die in prison’.
“I
said, ‘I didn’t do it, and I’m not going to pretend I did’. “I’m not going to
lie and I’m not going to protect them by making a false confession.”
Malkinson’s
solicitor, Emily Bolton, told reporters:
“Let’s
be clear on what has happened: Greater Manchester Police caused an innocent man
to be wrongly imprisoned for over 17 years. They withheld crucial evidence,
denying Andy a fair trial. They then unlawfully destroyed key exhibits, nearly
denying him the DNA test results which have established his innocence beyond
any doubt.
Greater
Manchester Police also utterly let down the victim of this brutal crime. Their
deeply flawed investigation failed to bring to justice her real attacker,
compromising public safety in the process.
The
public deserves better. The police must face full accountability for their
actions. …
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.’
Malkinson
was convicted by a majority jury. Unlike in the U.S., an unanimous jury in a
criminal case is not required.
Asked
by Consortium News if Malkinson is likely to be compensated, Bolton replied:
“The
compensation regime in this country is completely backward. You are required to
prove your innocence to the regime in order to be compensated. It will be years
before Andy receives anything. But in that regard, and I will say actually, I
consider compensation in this context to be a dirty word.
You
cannot compensate Andy for what he’s been through. How much would you have to
be paid to spend 17 years in prison with a conviction like this? You wouldn’t
do it. There is no amount of money that could compensate. Andy Malkinson for what
he’s been through. So let’s not call it compensation, let’s call it support to
rebuild his shattered life.”
Bolton
is the founder and director of APPEAL, a charitable organization dedicated to
investigating and resolving miscarriages of justice and liberating innocent
people from prison.
No
Resemblance
The
BBC added further details:
“For
a start, he looked nothing like the e-fit image of the suspect drawn up with
the help of the victim.
The
woman had left a deep scratch on her attacker’s face. There was no evidence Mr
Malkinson had been injured – none of his workmates had seen it – nor was there
DNA or other forensic evidence to link him to the victim or location.”
“He
was taller than how the attacker was described – and he also had prominent
tattoos on his forearms that the victim had not mentioned.
Instead,
she recalled a man who had a Bolton accent and a shiny hairless chest. ‘[The
police] made a big show of building up to this,’ Mr Malkinson recalls.
‘I
lifted my chest to show them. It was considerable growth. I’d never shaved my
chest in my life. But they just proceeded, brushed it aside and barrelled on.’
Then,
when he voluntarily agreed to take part in an identity parade, the victim
picked him out. …
The
Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge against his conviction in 2006.
He
then applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – an independent
body that examines potential miscarriages of justice.
It
rejected his case twice, but his team says the commission could have carried
out new DNA analysis and reviewed the police’s files.
Appeal
then launched legal action against GMP, demanding to see those files.
Ultimately,
it was the charity’s work – not the CCRC’s or GMP’s – that identified the new
DNA evidence in March 2021, thanks to advances in the science.
The
crucial sample had been found on the victim’s vest top.
The
National DNA Database then matched the profile to a man who had been added to
it in 2012.”
Police
Apology
Sarah
Jackson, Greater Manchester Police’s assistant chief constable later on
Wednesday released this apology to Malkinson and the rape victim:.
“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.”
Kate
Green, a Greater Manchester deputy mayor, called for an investigation. “This is
a shocking miscarriage of justice, and I would urge Government – as I will be
doing with Greater Manchester Police and local criminal justice partners – to
look at this case in close detail to examine what lessons need to be learnt
across the criminal justice system to prevent another innocent person having to
go through something like this again.”
Lord
Justice Timothy Holyrode, the same High Court judge who in October 2021
presided over the U.S.’s victorious appeal against Julian Assange’s release
from extradition, is seen here releasing Malkinson.
At
the end of the press conference Malkison was captured on Sky News raising his
fist in support of two Assange protestors who had come to the court for an
unrelated demonstration ahead of Assange’s final U.K. hearing in the same
courthouse at a date yet to be determined.
Wikipedia
lists dozens of such cases of wrongful convictions in the United States dating
back to 1805, including several in recent years in which DNA testing played a
decisive role. Since the 1970s, at least 123 people were on death row when
their convictions were overturned.
Wikipedia
lists 40 of the most prominent instances in Britain, including the wrongful
convictions of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven in the Guildford pub
bombings of 1974.
Unlike
other cases of wrongful conviction, there was no racial or political motives on
the part of the authorities.
Without
a full, impartial investigation it remains only to speculation to try to
understand why the police arrested Malkinson and then destroyed evidence, why
prosecutors railroaded him into prison and why the system failed him for so
long in his repeated attempts to achieve justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment