Andrew Malkinson says Greater Manchester Police’s actions caused his “wrongful conviction nightmare”.
Image source, PA MediaThe conviction of a man who served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit was “unsafe” because a police force failed to disclose evidence, appeal judges have ruled.
Andrew Malkinson had his conviction quashed over DNA linked to another man.
Further to this Greater Manchester Police (GMP) did not reveal photographs to the trial which showed the victim scratched the attacker, judges said.
Mr Malkinson said that “caused his “wrongful conviction nightmare”.
Following the ruling, he added that he felt “vindicated by the court’s finding that [GMP] unlawfully withheld evidence”.
GMP has been contacted by the BBC for a response.
Mr Malkinson was jailed in 2004 for an attack on a woman in Salford.
The police evidence which was not disclosed at his trial included photographs of the victim’s hands which showed the fingernail of the rape victim’s left middle finger was noticeably shorter than her other fingernails, which corroborated her evidence that she scratched her attacker’s face.
‘Casting doubt’
In his judgement, Lord Justice Holroyde said the failure to disclose the photographs had “prevented the appellant from putting his case forward in its best light and strengthened the prosecution case against him”.
Mr Malkinson’s defence team was therefore unable to highlight to the jury that he had no such scratch injury to his face.
Lord Justice Holroyde said: “If the photographs had been disclosed, the jury’s verdicts may have been different”.
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In his judgement, it was also noted that two eyewitnesses who identified Mr Malkinson had convictions for dishonesty offences.
Lord Justice Holroyde said if the previous convictions had been disclosed during the trial it “would have been capable of casting doubt on their general honesty and capable of affecting the jury’s view as to whether they were civic-minded persons doing their best to assist.”
He added: “In our judgement, the challenge to the character and credibility of those two identifying witnesses would have been capable of affecting the jury’s overall view as to whether they could be sure that the appellant was correctly identified.”
Following the ruling, Mr Malkinson said he felt “vindicated by the court’s finding that Greater Manchester Police unlawfully withheld evidence, denying me a fair trial and causing my wrongful conviction nightmare”.
He added: “The evidence needed to overturn my conviction has been sitting in police files for the past two decades.
“Yet the [Criminal Cases Review Commission] did not bother to look and it fell to the small charity Appeal to bring it to light.”
He said that cost him “extra years behind bars for a crime I did not commit”.
