Paul Quinn was found guilty of a brutal rape in 2003 for which innocent Mr Malkinson was jailed for 17 years.
An innocent man wrongly jailed for 17 years has said he was a “handy patsy” for police as the real culprit of a brutal rape was finally found guilty.
Andrew Malkinson spoke as Paul Quinn, 52, was on Friday convicted of the 2003 sex attack he was wrongly convicted and jailed for.
Mr Malkinson, victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice cases in British criminal history, said in a statement: “I am content that the right result has finally been achieved for the victim, myself and the public.
“But the truth is that if the police had acted as they should have done, Paul Quinn could have been caught a long time ago.
“Instead, they wanted a quick conviction and I was a handy patsy forced to spend over 17 years in prison for his horrific crime.”
After a six-week trial at Manchester Crown Court, Quinn was found guilty of the attack on a young mother as she walked home in Little Hulton, Salford, in the early hours of the morning on July 19 2003.
Mr Malkinson, working as a security guard at a local shopping centre, protested his innocence but was wrongly picked out at an identity parade and jailed.
Father-of-six Quinn, a sex offender from the age of 12, was arrested almost two decades later after advances in DNA testing meant that in 2022 a billion-to-one match of his DNA profile was made with saliva left on the victim’s vest top.
By then, Mr Malkinson, from Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, had made multiple failed appeals.
The victim of the attack said in a statement: “I am very pleased with the verdict today.
“It does not change the fact that two lives have been impacted in such a way, however, justice has been served.
“This investigation has been ongoing for over 20 years.
“It has robbed Mr Malkinson of 17 years in prison, and robbed me of the life I wanted to have.
“The impact of what happened that day stayed with me, and will stay for life.”
Mr Malkinson, now aged 60, was only released in 2020 after 17 years in jail, with his conviction finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023.
Fallout from the case continues, with a public inquiry now under way after a 2024 review found failings that could have exonerated Mr Malkinson a decade before he was eventually released from prison.
And five former Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officers and one currently serving with the force are under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), with both the chair and chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) having resigned.
Outside court Assistant Chief Constable Steph Parker, of GMP, said: “This day has come two decades too late for all involved in this horrendous case.
“To the victim of this heinous crime, and to Andrew Malkinson, the victim of this profound miscarriage of justice, I apologise sincerely and unreservedly on behalf of Greater Manchester Police.
“I want to pay tribute to the victim, who has shown unbreakable strength from day one, to help bring her attacker to justice.
“And I commend the courage of Mr Malkinson, who, despite everything, has supported this case.
“Paul Quinn is a dangerous man.
“The harm he has done to the victim, and the cowardice of watching the wrong man go to prison for his crime, is unforgivable.”
Quinn stalked his victim, in her 30s, as she walked home, dragging her from the street down a motorway embankment.
He battered her, fracturing her cheekbone, and she was strangled unconscious and twice raped.
He also bit her left nipple, almost severing it, but left behind on her vest top his saliva from which his DNA was recovered years later.
No DNA evidence had linked Mr Malkinson to the crime but he was picked out at an identity parade.
When the victim gave evidence against Mr Malkinson in 2003 she had doubts she had picked out the right man, but police dismissed this as “just trial nerves”.
And the DNA sample from the victim’s vest top, only recovered and identified in 2007, was analysed and ruled out Mr Malkinson, a development which “ought to have set alarm bells ringing”, the court heard.
The crime scene sample was identified as coming from “Unknown Male 1”.
Quinn had a history of sex offending and violence towards women and had been cautioned for indecent assault in 1986, aged just 12, and in November 1992, aged 16, was convicted of two counts of under-age sex with a girl aged 12.
In 2012, Quinn was visited by police to take his DNA to put on the national database during a national operation to harvest samples from known sex offenders.
In 2012 and 2020, the Criminal Cases Review Commission twice refused an appeal by Mr Malkinson.
As DNA testing advanced over the years, in August 2022 news broke that police had matched the vest top DNA sample to another man.
The development had a “profound” effect on Quinn’s internet usage, his trial heard.
Quinn told jurors it was a “complete coincidence” he had begun scouring the news for information on the Malkinson case and repeatedly searched Google, asking: “How long is DNA kept in database”, and, “Why do I keep sweating all the time…”
He also searched “wrongful convictions” in the UK and had begun to “fear a knock on the door” was coming.
By the time of his arrest in December 2022, Quinn had divorced in 2016 and moved to Exeter, Devon, working as a delivery driver, following a dispute over drugs in his home town of Salford.
Detectives say they believe Quinn may be responsible for other offences and are looking at any links he may have to unsolved crimes.
He was convicted of two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm and attempting to choke or strangle his victim to render her unconscious while he carried out the attack.
Quinn will be sentenced on June 5.
