Paul Quinn, 52, was convicted of the 2003 sex attack that Andrew Malkinson was wrongly convicted and jailed for.
An innocent man wrongly jailed for 17 years has demanded a “fearless investigation” into police after the real culprit of a brutal rape was finally found guilty.
On Friday, Paul Quinn, 52, was convicted of the 2003 sex attack that Andrew Malkinson was wrongly convicted and jailed for.
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) over the case, with both the chair and chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) having resigned.
A public inquiry is under way after a 2024 review found failings that could have exonerated Mr Malkinson a decade before he was eventually released from prison.
Mr Malkinson, victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British criminal history, told The Sunday Times: “I want fearless investigation and full answers now. These weren’t innocent mistakes. These weren’t just errors.
“The police chose to ignore evidence of my innocence. They chose to destroy and not disclose evidence.
“They chose to resist my efforts to clear my name. People should be held accountable for those choices.”
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.
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”.
A DNA sample from the victim’s vest top, only recovered and identified in 2007, was analysed and ruled out Mr Malkinson in a development which “ought to have set alarm bells ringing”, the court heard.
Father-of-six Quinn, a sex offender from the age of 12, was arrested almost two decades on from the trial.
This came 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 vest top.
By then, Mr Malkinson, from Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, had made multiple failed appeals.
Mr Malkinson, now 60, was released in 2020 after 17 years in jail, with his conviction finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023.
He told The Sunday Times: “The police should have had him (Quinn) on their radar. But, instead, they insisted on going after me, even after the victim expressed doubts that it was me.”
He added: “I feel like I can breathe a little easier today. I hope the victim can, too.”
Mr Malkinson’s mother, Trish Hose, said her son “is damaged. Psychologically and emotionally, mentally, in every way, he’s a damaged man for what has happened to him. It’s outrageous.”
“All the time my son was telling the truth, that he was innocent and it wasn’t his DNA, but it was just ignored; ignored by Greater Manchester Police and the Criminal Cases Review Commission”, the 79-year-old told The Sunday Times.
“They’ve just been incompetent and not looked at the evidence at the time properly and they’ve just allowed this guy who’s a monster to roam free in plain sight.”
Of the victim, Ms Hose said: “God knows how she copes with it. I don’t know. Twenty years ago she thought the man who attacked her was in prison.”
Speaking outside the court on Friday, 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.”
