Child rapist harboured sick secret for 17 years with harmless man locked up for his crime
Paul Quinn’s conviction for the brutal rape of a young mother brings partial justice for the victim and Andrew Malkinson, the innocent man wrongly jailed for 17 years while Quinn lived nearby
Paul Quinn who has been found guilty by a jury at Manchester Crown Court of a rape attack in 2003, for which innocent man Andrew Malkinson was jailed for 17 years(Image: GMP/PA Wire)
For nearly 23 years, sex offender Paul Quinn harboured the secret of his savage rape of a young mum.
Quinn’s conviction after a six-week trial at Manchester Crown Court brings some justice for the victim and Andrew Malkinson, the innocent man Quinn knew had been falsely imprisoned for 17 years for the 2003 assault in Little Hulton, Salford.
Former police officers are now being probed for gross misconduct, two heads of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) have stepped down, and a public inquiry has been initiated to examine how the wrong man ended up behind bars. A review of the case by Chris Henley KC in 2024 discovered a series of blunders that could have cleared Mr Malkinson’s name a decade before he was freed from prison in 2020.
Within hours of the attack, which occurred in the early hours of July 19, 2003, the police investigation swiftly went awry.
The victim provided a description which two local police officers thought closely resembled Mr Malkinson, a security guard at a nearby shopping centre.
She informed the police that she had scratched her attacker’s face, breaking a nail and leaving a deep mark. However, when Mr Malkinson was apprehended, he had no such scratch and strongly denied his guilt.
A day later, the victim identified Mr Malkinson at an identity parade. A second witness selected a different man but then changed her mind and identified Mr Malkinson. Both witnesses were transported to the parade in the same police car.
During his trial, the victim expressed uncertainty about her identification of Mr Malkinson, but was told by officers that her hesitation was simply “trial nerves”.
No DNA evidence could be discovered connecting Mr Malkinson to the offence and his conviction relied on identification testimony.
In March 2004, he received a life sentence with a minimum term of seven years behind bars. Two years later the Court of Appeal rejected his initial appeal. However, in 2007 a DNA profile was extracted from the vest top the victim had been wearing.
It excluded Mr Malkinson but revealed a profile from another individual, “Unknown Male 1′′, which “ought to have set alarm bells ringing”, Quinn’s trial heard.
By 2010, Mr Malkinson qualified for parole, but stayed imprisoned because he continued to protest his innocence. A year later, the CCRC declined to send his case back to the Court of Appeal, rejecting the importance of the fresh DNA evidence.
Paul Quinn had been found guilty of having sex with a 12-year-old girl in 1992. In 2012 police launched an operation to collect DNA profiles of known sex offenders, obtaining a swab from Quinn.
From this moment his DNA profile was entered onto the national database. In 2020, the CCCR once more chose not to refer Mr Malkinson’s application to the Court of Appeal.
The Henley review discovered that if examination of the “Unknown Male 1′′ DNA sample had been undertaken, a possible match to Quinn would have been identified. The same year, Mr Malkinson was released from prison on licence after serving 17 years, four months and 16 days.
A search of the police database in October 2022 revealed a one in a billion profile match between the DNA sample from the rape victim’s vest top and sex offender Paul Quinn, who is currently residing in Devon, but at the time lived just a mile from the crime scene.
In July 2023, Mr Malkinson’s conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal. He claimed “the system” had failed both him and the victim, accusing the police of a “cover up”. Greater Manchester Police issued an apology to him.
Since then, a public inquiry has been launched, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating five former and one current police officer, and both Helen Pitcher, chairwoman, and Karen Kneller, chief executive of the CCRC have stepped down.
