Andy Malkinson could have been freed after five years – report

Mr Malkinson welcomed the news, saying Ms Pitcher had “proved herself utterly unfit to lead the CCRC”.

The report revealed the body’s investigators and leaders failed to follow up evidence of innocence right up to 2022.

The justice secretary said the findings were “sobering”.

“It is my firm view that Helen Pitcher is unfit to fulfil her duties as chair of the CCRC. I have therefore begun the process to seek her removal from that position,” Ms Mahmood said.

“My thoughts are with both Andrew Malkinson and the victim of this horrific crime.”

In response Mr Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail, said he hopes “this will be followed with a complete overhaul” of the CCRC.

“Ms Pitcher’s discredited senior leadership team should also now go, and be replaced with people who are serious about fighting miscarriages of justice,” he said.

She has apologised in a statement. She is unavailable to be interviewed today for personal reasons.

Mr Malkinson was accused in 2003 of raping a woman in Greater Manchester. He was convicted and jailed for life despite no DNA linking him to the crime.

He was convicted solely on contested eyewitness accounts that placed him near the scene, even though he did not resemble the suspect or bear a deep facial scratch injury that the victim had inflicted on her attacker.

Three years after he was jailed, forensic scientists, using new DNA techniques, found key evidence from an intimate part of the victim’s clothing that pointed to a different unknown man.

By 2009, Greater Manchester Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the CCRC all knew of this lead – but the miscarriages agency rejected the first of Mr Malkinson’s three pleas for help.

In his report, Chris Henley KC said this was the first in a series of missed opportunities by the CCRC.

In 2013 the agency failed to review the file again, despite the Court of Appeal exonerating another man of rape in near-identical circumstances.

It then dismissed Mr Malkinson’s further plea for help in 2019 – and considered turning him down a third time in 2022.

The report finds that agency only referred the case back to judges after Appeal, a legal charity acting for Mr Malkinson, won a battle to have new DNA analysis conducted. Mr Henley said he had no confidence the CCRC would have ever done the work itself.

“It had taken 20 years to put this appalling miscarriage of justice right,” said Mr Henley.

“This case demonstrates a deep-seated, system-wide cultural reluctance, which starts right at the top in the Court of Appeal, to acknowledge our criminal justice system will on occasion make mistakes.

“It is not by any standard a success, or a demonstration that things are working properly, that Mr Malkinson had to wait 20 years to be exonerated.”