by On the morning of August 2, 2003 there was a knock on Andrew Malkinson’s door. It was the police. They told him he matched the description of a man who attacked and raped a young mother-of-two on a motorway embankment in Little Hulton.
They arrested him for attempted murder and rape. Mr Malkinson took part in a video which convinced him that everything was about to be ‘cleaned up’. But the victim recognized him.
It is almost impossible to fathom the terrible nightmare that his life was from that moment on.
READ MORE: Greater Manchester Police release statement ahead of BBC documentary on Andrew Malkinson
Just over six months later he was falsely convicted by a jury at Manchester Crown Court of rape and sentenced to life for at least seven years. As he was put down Mr Malkinson said aloud: “I am completely innocent”.
He went on to spend 17 and a half years behind bars for a crime he did not commit – he could have been free after six years if he had given a false confession.
Tonight (June 6) The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars on BBC Two outlines the appalling failures of the British legal system and the horrific miscarriage of justice suffered by Mr Malkinson.
On March 30, 2004, Mr Malkinson, then 37, began his life sentence in the sex offenders’ wing at HMP Frankland.
His rape conviction was upheld despite the fact that there was no forensic evidence to point him to the scene. The prosecution’s theory was that the attacker was forensically conscious and had worn a condom.
When the prosecution counsel asked the victim during the trial if the man who raped her was in court she said yes. When asked how sure she was she said: ‘100 per cent’.
The press – including FEAR – reported on the nature of the attack; the police appeal, the court case, and the police wrote that the woman who raped Malkinson was a “dangerous man” and a “monster”. Later coverage involved Mr Malkinson’s campaign to clear his name.
The IS Men’s chief reporter Neal Keeling followed the case from the beginning and featured in tonight’s BBC documentary. As the Men’s Salford district reporter at the time, his involvement in the case began a few days after the rape which took place in the early hours of July 19, 2003.
The victim, who was 33 years old at the time, went rowing with her boyfriend at home. She left the property and he assumed she had gone for a short walk. But she had decided to walk to her house a few miles away.
On the way, she walked down Armitage Avenue in Little Hulton and a man called out from the bushes: “I suggest you come into the bushes, I’ve got a gun pointed at you”.
She continued walking, but, at a motorway bridge where Cleggs Lane in Little Hulton meets Buckley Lane in Farnworth, a man who had stalked her for two-thirds of a mile gave birth. During the attack the woman suffered a broken cheekbone, an injury to her voice box, and a fractured breast.
Greater Manchester Police gave Mr Keeling a description of the rape which the victim provided to cover up.
He was described as 5ft 8in, with a “bodybuilder type” physique; in the early to mid 30s. He had a smooth stomach and muscles, olive skin, and thick wavy brown or black hair. His chest was shiny and hairless.
Mr Malkinson is 5ft 11in, has chest hair, and is originally from Grimsby. He had only been living in the Walkden area for a short time after moving back to the UK after living abroad.
Ten days after the rape, the police issued a suit for the suspect based on the victim’s description. Mr Malkinson’s life changed when he was stopped by two neighborhood officers in the Little Hulton and Walkden area while riding an off-road motorbike with the son of a couple he was staying with in Walkden at the time.
Officers thought the man in the e-fit looked like Mr Malkinson and he was later arrested. A judge would later recommend that both officers receive a commendation.
Mr Malkinson, now 58, described his arrest as “kidnapping by the state”.
‘I am an ordinary citizen, and ordinary people should know that they can be taken. Just accept it, it can happen to anyone and once you’ve got them they don’t want to let you go.
“You can’t prepare yourself, you can’t see it coming. It’s just a joke and your life changes in an instant,” he said.
After being recognised, Mr Malkinson was remanded in custody to await trial.
Recalling standing in the dock waiting to learn his fate, he said: “I looked around the court, I saw the jurors, I saw the judge and I can’t believe this is happening. It’s so crazy it’s like a parallel nightmare world. The whole world hates you now.”
Looking back on the years he spent behind bars he said: “I was scared. For the first few weeks, months you don’t think you’re going to make it.
“One week it drags on to the next and then it drags on and this slow cycle of time where nothing happens for months on end is hard to describe. It’s like a different dimension of time” , he said.
“I’d wake up and go, oh f*** I’m still here. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could wake up and sleep on it,” he said.
Immediately after the trial Mr Malkinson launched an appeal against his conviction. The appeal was based on evidence of contamination and weaknesses in the identification evidence.
He was dismissed in 2006 after the Court of Appeal decided that the grounds were not strong enough to overturn a conviction.
The following year a DNA test was carried out on the top of the victim’s vest again. A man’s DNA was found and it was not Mr Malkinson.
Mr Malkinson applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the only organization that can refer a case back to the Court of Appeal, but his application was refused. The CCRC did not consider the new DNA evidence to be a strong enough reason for further investigation.
In a letter sent from prison to his former partner and best friend Karin after the verdict, Mr Malkinson wrote: “It feels like the walls are closing in on me. Pushing me.”
To be eligible for parole Mr Malkinson was told he had to attend an offending behavior program which would require him to admit the crime he had been convicted of. He refused. He was considered to be in ‘denial’ and was not released for parole.
In 2017 Mr Malkinson turned to the APPEAL organization for help after 14 years behind bars. They accepted his case.
APPEAL requested access to the victim’s clothing to carry out further DNA testing but police were unable to find key exhibits in the case. APPEAL then found that the force destroyed the top of the victim’s vest in 2016 which had another man’s DNA on it.
In a stroke of luck APPEAL then discovered that samples from the items removed from the case, including the top of the vest, had been retained by a body independent of the police.
The first set of results confirmed the finding that an unknown male was on top of the victim’s body.
In 2020 after more than 17 years in prison Mr Malkinson was released on life license which meant he was still considered a sex offender in the eyes of the law.
APPEAL made another application to the CCRC after finding that the two witnesses in the case of Mr Malkinson, who claimed to have seen him after the victim on the night of the attack, had accumulated convictions for 26 offenses of dishonesty.
In January last year, two years after Malkinson’s release, the CCRC decided to refer the case back to the appeal court on the basis of new forensic evidence including a significant match from the national DNA database.
The DNA was found to match a man who was not previously involved in the investigation and who did not know the victim, known as Mr B, who lived near where the attack took place.
In July the Court of Appeal overturned Mr Malkinson’s conviction after hearing that a break in the DNA evidence led to the arrest of a new suspect.
Despite the DNA match to Mr B no one has yet been charged with the attack. Mr Malkinson has not yet received any compensation and is currently on benefits.
He said: “I wanted to prove my innocence and I have done that but I have lost 20 years of my life and no amount of apologies or pleasure about the lessons learned can make up for what they have done to me.
“The damage is done. The pain doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go away.”
As for how the experience affected him, he said “I need a reality check on my thinking sometimes when the panic and nightmares and flashbacks are overwhelming,” he said.
“I get panic attacks, and I often spend too much time thinking about what happened when I should be spending as little time as possible reliving that. But of course some memory is needed. I feel I have to tell the story.”
Before the documentary broadcast tonight Greater Manchester Police have issued an apology to Mr. Malkinson.
A GMP spokesman said: “We are deeply sorry for our failings which led to the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson.
“The issues raised in tonight’s BBC documentary form part of the ongoing investigation with which we are fully co-operating. We must bring the real offender to justice. We have recently passed a file to the SPC. “
