After spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, Andrew Malkinson, 57, was acquitted on Wednesday by the UK Court of Appeal.
His acquittal came after new DNA material revealed the existence of another suspect.
Malkinson had been arrested in 2002 for the rape of a woman in the Manchester area. A year later, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he had to serve a minimum of seven years, but by continuing to claim his innocence, he spent a further ten years in prison.
On two occasions, Andrew Malkinson applied for a retrial, to no avail. He was released in 2020. On Wednesday, his conviction was quashed, all three charges – two of rape and one of strangulation with rape.
In the absence of DNA evidence, prosecutors had relied solely on an eyewitness at the time of the investigation. Today, Justice’s sights are set on another suspect.
According to Malkinson’s lawyer, the Commission of Inquiry into Possible Miscarriages of Justice had known since 2009 that there was “crime-specific” DNA that did not match Malkinson or the victim. At the time, the commission did not consider this information sufficient to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
