The Stolen Honour of Andrew Malkinson
Ken Macdonald KC and Tim Owen KC are joined by guest Chris Henley KC, to explore the terrible miscarriage of justice which led to Andrew Malkinson spending 17 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit. Looking at Chris’s report into the scandal, they examine the failures of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and its atrocious mishandling of crucial DNA evidence. What lay behind the CCRC’s reluctance to revisit this wrongful conviction, and why did it betray its founding mission? They also consider the danger of relying on identification evidence, and the Court of Appeal’s much overdue quashing of Malkinson’s conviction, which it delivered with no apology. Why is there still such cultural resistance to the idea that innocent people can be convicted? And why aren’t Court of Appeal judges providing a stronger lead in uncovering injustice?