My name is Andy Malkinson. I was imprisoned for over 17 years for a crime I didn’t commit. On 26 July appeal judges in London finally overturned my conviction. New DNA evidence showed what I’ve been saying all along: that I’m completely innocent and the police got the wrong man.

 

It should have been obvious from the get-go that my case was a miscarriage of justice. No forensic evidence linked me to the crime, and I didn’t match the description.

 

So why did it take nearly 20 years to get justice? Well, the public body which is meant to act as a ‘safety net’ for wrongly convicted people like me – the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – twice turned down my case, costing me extra years of my life behind bars. I asked the CCRC to commission new DNA testing to prove my innocence years ago, but they refused. They wouldn’t even bother reviewing the police files.

 

Instead, the small legal charity APPEAL did the work the CCRC failed to do. APPEAL arranged new DNA testing supporting my innocence. They also took the police to court, unearthing crucial evidence which the CCRC failed to uncover. Presented with all this, the CCRC finally sent my case for appeal.

 

I want CCRC Chair Helen Pitcher to apologise for these failings and commission an external, independent review aimed at learning lessons from what went wrong in their handling of my case.

 

The CCRC only grants new appeals in less than 2% of the cases it considers – so I know other wrongly convicted people are being let down. Please sign my petition if you agree the CCRC must apologise and learn from its mistakes, so that others don’t suffer what I’ve been through.

 

If you would like to know more about my case, there's a podcast about it from the Times here.