Falsely imprisoned for a rape he didn’t commit | The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars – BBC

Charged with a crime he didn’t commit, Andy tells the shocking story of 17 years in prison & his fight for justice.

#TheWrongMan #17YearsBehindBars #iPlayer

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Fighting to prove his innocence, Andrew Malkinson tells the shocking story of how he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a horrific crime he didn’t commit.

#TheWrongMan #17YearsBehindBars #iplayer

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you can’t prepare yourself you don’t see it coming it’s just poof your life changes in an instant on the morning of the 2nd of August I was in grimby about 8:15 there was a knock on the door it’s the police what do they want open the door yet is it Mr markinson and straight away I thought how they know my name why he said uh we’re arresting you for attempted murder and rape what couple of weeks before the victim was attacked Andrew was out riding Pon on a motorbike two police officers decide to stop the bike that he’s on The Interchange is quite amicable but those two officers then decide that he Bears a striking resemblance to the description of the attacker they seem dead set that it’s me the police asked me to go on an ID parade yeah let’s clear this up yeah we’ll go on an ID parade I thought there’s no way she’ll pick me on the next day the duty solicit was representing me says I’m afraid to say that the victim has picked you out of the ID parade and I thought what the I just burst into tears I couldn’t help it I said I never touched that woman I don’t know who she is I was asked to cover the court case the kind of image that they gave of him was that this is a bloke who was a bit weird he was an oddball and that he’d been living abroad it was a bit of a Drifter as there was no DNA evidence it was all Reliance on identification the most crucial B of evidence the jury heard was that when asked by the prosecution Barrister if the man who raped her was in court the victim said yes he then asked her how sure are you that this is the man and she said 100% there was two witnesses that told pleas that they’ve seen the rapist emerge the Integrity of the witness is was never question it’s quite tense the jury came back by a majority of 10 to two they found Mr malkinson guilty oh I just couldn’t believe it absolute disbelief horror and [Music] fear and I was just terrified for the first few weeks months you just don’t think you’re going to make it one week it drags over into the next week and it drags over and this slow time cycle when nothing happens for months on end it’s hard to describe it’s like a different dimension of time my appeal was based on contaminated swabs and weaknesses in the identification evidence the court of appeal decided that the grounds weren’t strong enough to overturn the conviction and then something happened that I hoped would change everything Killers rapists and other serious criminals may have escaped Justice because of blunders by the official forensic service I thought this has got to be it now they’ve got to fix it this time you know they’ll get to the bottom of it they’ll see there’s something not right so I’m make an application to the CCRC took him over two years to say no prisoners write to us from all over the country we screen those cases and we choose those where we are not only convinced that the prisoner could be be innocent but also where we can see a route through investigation to achieve their exoneration and that was definitely true of Andy’s case the police couldn’t find really key exhibits in the case we found out that in 2016 they destroyed the victim’s vtop and we think probably also the other items of clothing on that same occasion it was very surreal it didn’t feel real I wanted to go to the beach and feel the waves and the the wind and the cold air you know the the precious things but I’m not free I’m just not free the conviction it’s false it’s a lie it’s not true I’m not resting until it’s overturned when Andy was released from prison it was on a life license that meant in the eyes of the system he was still convicted they still considered him to be a sex offender which meant he was under tight supervision by both the probation service and the police we knew that the DNA evidence showed Andy was innocent but what we didn’t understand was why the two witnesses claimed that they’d seen Andy out on the street that night following the victim so I started conducting checks by the time they were given that evidence and cour had a mass convictions for 26 dishonesty offenses between them the jury had been completely misled these were not honest people okay Andy it’s here yeah let’s see got let’s open it here we go it’s opening dear appeal find attach details of the decision to beir hey [Applause] y well done [Music] [Applause]