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Review says CCRC failed Malkinson + head of CCRC also head of body that appoints judges
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TOPIC: Review says CCRC failed Malkinson + head of CCRC also head of body that appoints judges
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Review says CCRC failed Malkinson + head of CCRC also head of body that appoints judges 11 Months ago
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Can't believe that the head of the CCRC is also head of the body that appoints judges. Surely a major conflict of interests. Perhaps this helps explain why the CCRC seems to be so useless.
Other prisoners could be freed by case review - Malkinson
Andrew Malkinson says he says he knows "at least half a dozen people" currently in prison who he believes could be exonerated if their cases were reviewed.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Malkinson - who served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit - described the failures in the process for reviewing potential miscarriages of justice as a "human rights atrocity".
His comments come following the publication of an independent review that found he was completely failed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - and mounting pressure on its head to quit. ...
The damning report into how Mr Malkinson's case was handled, which was published on Thursday, concluded he could have been freed five years after receiving a life sentence for a 2003 rape.
It revealed the CCRC's investigators and leaders failed to follow up evidence of innocence right up to 2022.
“It’s absolutely shocking what Chris Henley has uncovered," Mr Malkinson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"It’s vast incompetence at the very least… and I don’t know what it’s like at worst", he said.
"It seems they [the CCRC] devote all their time and resources to finding ‘clever me’ arguments about why they shouldn’t refer, rather than looking at the police files and really investigating."
His comments come after Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she would seek the sacking of CCRC chair Helen Pitcher, saying she was "unable to fulfil her duties".
The BBC understands that Ms Mahmood's Conservative predecessor, Alex Chalk, had reached a similar conclusion on the eve of the General Election, having read Mr Henley's findings.
Ms Pitcher has told the Ministry of Justice she will not quit. Ministers cannot directly sack her, because the CCRC is an independent part of the legal system, so a panel needs to be convened to ensure the decision is independently taken.
On Friday, former Justice Secretary Lord Falconer called on Ms Pitcher to resign not just from that role but from her other position as the head of the the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) - the body that appoints all judges in England and Wales.
Mr Falconer said Ms Pitcher should never have been appointed to both roles at the same time, as the CCRC's work includes challenging judge's decisions. ... |
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