Sex offender Paul Quinn harboured the secret of his rape for nearly 23 years, while innocent man Andrew Malkinson spent 17 years in prison for the Salford attack in a devastating miscarriage of justice
For nearly 23 years, sex offender Paul Quinn concealed the truth of his brutal rape of a young mother but now justice has finally caught up with him. Today Quinn was jailed for 24 years after a six-week trial at Manchester Crown Court.
In what has since been described as one of the UK’s biggest miscarriages of justice, Andrew Malkinson served 17 years for the 2003 assault in Little Hulton, Salford, which Quinn knew he didn’t commit.
Former police officers are now under investigation for gross misconduct, two heads of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) have resigned, and a public inquiry has been launched to investigate how the wrong man ended up in prison. A review of the case by Chris Henley KC in 2024 uncovered a series of mistakes that could have cleared Mr Malkinson’s name a decade before he was released from prison in 2020.
Within hours of the attack, which took place in the early hours of July 19, 2003, the police investigation quickly went off track.
The victim provided a description which two local police officers believed closely matched Mr Malkinson, a security guard at a nearby shopping centre
She told the police that she had scratched her attacker’s face, breaking a nail and leaving a deep mark. However, when Mr Malkinson was arrested, he had no such scratch and vehemently denied his guilt.
A day later, the victim identified Mr Malkinson at an identity parade. A second witness picked out 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 doubt about her identification of Mr Malkinson, but was reassured by officers that her hesitation was simply “trial nerves”.
No DNA evidence could be found linking Mr Malkinson to the crime and his conviction relied on identification testimony.
In March 2004, he was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of seven years in prison. Two years later, the Court of Appeal dismissed 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 was eligible for parole, but remained incarcerated because he continued to maintain his innocence. A year later, the CCRC declined to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal, dismissing the significance of the new DNA evidence.
Paul Quinn had been convicted of having sex with a 12 year old girl in 1992. In 2012 police initiated an operation to collect DNA profiles of known sex offenders, obtaining a swab from Quinn.
From this point, his DNA profile was entered onto the national database. In 2020, the CCCR once again chose not to refer Mr Malkinson’s application to the Court of Appeal.
The Henley review uncovered that if examination of the “Unknown Male 1” DNA sample had been carried out, a potential match to Quinn would have been discovered. The same year, Mr Malkinson was freed 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 was currently living in Devon, but at the time resided just a mile from the crime scene.
In July 2023, Mr Malkinson’s conviction was quashed 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.
Sentencing Paul Quinn at Manchester Crown Court today, Mr Justice Bright said his victim is a “hero”.
“She, not you Paul Quinn, is the person from this case who I will remember for the rest of my days. She is truly a hero.”
Mr Justice Bright said it was obvious how “excruciating” it was for her to come back to court for a second time. She is a remarkable person,” he said.
The judge said the woman “is very lucky she did not die” and also lucky she did not incur significant brain damage given the oxygen deprivation that must have taken place during the incident.
Mr Justice Bright said the strangulation was “extreme”, as was the unconsciousness it caused. The fact remains that these injuries were intentionally inflicted on a woman who lay on the ground, unconscious, and completely defenceless,” he said.
Mr Justice Bright said the incident was “certainly unusually violent, even by the standards of stranger rapes”.
He said there has also been “dire” effects on Andrew Malkinson. It is utterly clear that you knew throughout that another man had been arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned.
“You knew that his conviction was wrongful,” the judge said.