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A man has gone on trial accused of the rape of a woman 23 years ago that led to one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Britain.
Andrew Malkinson spent more than 17 years in prison after being mistakenly linked to the crime in Greater Manchester in 2003, a jury was told on Wednesday.
John Price KC, prosecuting, told Manchester crown court that Malkinson was in fact “the victim of a most terrible miscarriage of justice, one of the worst there has been”.
Another man, Paul Quinn, 51, is now on trial accused of two counts of rape, one count of attempt to strangle, and one count of assault intending to cause grievous bodily harm. He denies the charges.
Price told jurors that the woman was subjected to sexual violence “of the gravest kind” in the Salford area on 19 July 2003. She was raped twice and strangled until she was unconscious, her left cheekbone fractured by a blow to the face, the court heard.
The prosecuting lawyer said the man who carried out the “dreadful assault” was a complete stranger to the victim. Quinn, from Exeter, sat making notes as he listened to proceedings from the glass enclosed dock.
Quinn, who lived near the scene of the attack, is accused of following the victim as she approached an embankment near a motorway bridge, where he “suddenly launched his assault”.
Price said: “What that tells you, the prosecution submits, is that he wasn’t only a local man. He was someone who knew of that obscure location. A man with prior knowledge of its existence.”
The prosecutor told jurors that Quinn had planned to “forcibly take her out of view of the passing road”.
Malkinson’s name was first raised in connection with the rape by two police officers, the court was told. They said they had spoken to him weeks earlier and thought he matched a description given by the victim.
When the two officers spoke to Malkinson on the day after the attack, they thought he looked “strikingly” like her description, the court heard. However, the victim believed her attacker would have an “obvious” scratch on his face from the struggle – but Malkinson did not have any visible injury.
Jurors were told that Malkinson, then working as a security officer at a local shopping centre, had a dispute with the people he lived with and told them he was going to the Netherlands.
Price said this “sudden departure” added to the suspicion of Malkinson among detectives and he was arrested shortly after having been traced to a hostel in Grimsby.
The court heard that two other witnesses, Beverley Craig and Michael Seward, had picked out Malkinson in a digital ID parade having seen the assailant “sweating profusely” shortly after the attack.
However, jurors were told that Craig initially identified another man in the police lineup but then selected Malkinson after leaving the room. Seward, her partner, picked out Malkinson during another ID parade four months later.
The identifications of Malkinson were “honestly and genuinely made” mistakes, the prosecution said.
Price said new tests had shown Quinn’s DNA on the victim’s clothing and body. The prosecutor said there was “no alternative plausible explanation” for how this DNA could be deposited in this way.
The trial continues.
