A man who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit has said he feels “vindicated” by the resignation of the chair of the miscarriages of justice review body.
Helen Pitcher had been heavily criticised for the failings of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in relation to Andy Malkinson’s case.
Ms Pitcher told the Times she had been made a scapegoat but Mr Malkinson said she had been “made accountable”.
“She’s been complaining that she’s been made a scapegoat but I was made a scapegoat, she has been made accountable and I feel vindicated,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Last summer, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood began the formal process of sending a recommendation to the King that Ms Pitcher should go, after personally concluding that she was not fit to head the CCRC.
That decision came after a damning independent report , into how the CCRC had mishandled Mr Malkinson’s pleas for help, and how the chair herself had presented its work on his case.
While he was in jail, the CCRC twice rejected Mr Malkinson’s submissions that he was innocent. The second of those rejections came after Ms Pitcher had become chair in 2018.
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