Andrew Malkinson is to receive an initial ‘six-figure’ compensation payout from the government after suffering one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times, becoming one of a tiny handful of wrongfully convicted people to receive any recompense in the last decade.
Malkinson stood outside the Court of Appeal in 2023 wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Innocent, and not the only one’, drawing attention to the plight of those who are having to fight for years to have their wrongful convictions overturned by an uninquisitive and glacially slow system for rectifying the justice system’s mistakes. Ironically he now becomes one of the only ones to receive any kind of financial redress for the harrowing ordeal he has suffered.
It was confirmed yesterday that Malkinson will receive a sum in advance of his full payout. A law introduced in 2008 by the then Labour government means victims of miscarriages of justice can only receive up to £1m in compensation. That figure does not keep pace with inflation, despite that amount being worth almost double today.
Malkinson was imprisoned for 17 years for a rape he did not commit, with his fight to clear his name hampered by grave errors by the miscarriages of justice watchdog, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The head of the CCRC was forced to resign last month, in part as a result of her poor handling of Malkinson’s case, which could have seen him released from prison many years earlier had they properly investigated the DNA evidence that exonerated him when it was first discovered.
In receiving this initial payment, Malkinson will become one of the only people wrongly convicted of a crime to be compensated in recent years. Payouts have collapsed since a law change in 2014 forced applicants to prove they are innocent ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ – a drastically insurmountable hurdle for the vast majority of the wrongfully convicted. As reported by the Justice Gap last year, less than 7% of applications for compensation by victims of miscarriages of justice have been successful in the last eight years.
From 2020 to 2023 the Ministry of Justice paid out less than £1.5m in total in compensation to victims of miscarriages of justice for 13 successful applications – this followed a two-year period when the government didn’t appear to pay a penny.
Speaking in 2024 Malkinson described the compensation system as one ‘that was designed by people who simply could not believe our justice system could convict the completely innocent.’ He said the current compensation system also works under the ‘delusion’ that the state is ‘being consistently ripped off by prisoners whose convictions had been quashed’.
While unable to work due to the mental toll of what he had suffered, and living on benefits, he described the feeling of being ‘trapped in parliamentarians’ paranoia that swathes of the people whose convictions are quashed might be guilty.’
Speaking to the Guardian this week he said he would use this initial payout to visit family in Australia who he has not seen since before his 17-year stint in prison as an innocent man.
