A man has gone on trial for the rape of a woman for which a wrongly convicted man spent 17 years in jail.

Andrew Malkinson, 60, was incorrectly picked out at a police identity parade and happened to live near the crime scene in Little Hulton, Salford.

John Price KC told a jury at Manchester Crown Court that Malkinson was the ‘victim of a most terrible miscarriage of crime’.

Price alleged that it was Paul Quinn, 29 at the time of the offences, who was in fact responsible for attacking the victim on July 19, 2003.

The victim, who cannot be named due to legal reasons, was in her 30s at the time and walking home in the early hours of the morning, jurors were told.

She was strangled unconscious, beaten and raped twice, as well as suffering a fractured cheek bone.

After the attack, she climbed back up the motorway embankment and told a man she came across that she had been ‘attacked and raped’.

Jurors heard the crime scene was secured by a cordon and mobile police station was set up for officers to respond to enquiries and receive information from passers-by.

Two local police officers were told the description of the suspect by a detective – a white man with tanned or olive skin, of slim build. They recalled a man they had spoken to earlier in the summer, who they identified as Andrew Malkinson.

Jurors heard that Malkinson’s appearance was considered by officers as ‘strikingly to match’ the description of the attacker.

Six days after the attack, Malkinson abruptly quit his job and left after problems with people he had previously lived with. He told a friend he was going to Holland.

This sudden departure led to police tracking Malkinson to a Salvation Army Hostel in Grimsby, where he was arrested and brought back to Salford to attend an identity parade.

On August 3, Ms Beverly Craig and the victim took part in a procedure to try to identify the rapist, called a Viper procedure. Witnesses were asked to view a screen of a number of faces, including the suspect.

Both Craig and the victim identified Malkinson as the suspect. He was charged over the attack the same day.

However, Price said DNA evidence recovered by police on the rape victim’s clothing and body matches Paul Quinn’s DNA profile, not Malkinson’s.

Price said: “Evidence gathered in this second investigation, including, as mentioned, DNA evidence, and which will be presented in this trial, proves, it is submitted, that it was Paul Quinn and not Andrew Malkinson who had attacked the victim on 19th July 2003.”

The trial continues at Manchester Crown Court.

Featured image credit: Stephen Richards, Wikimedia Commons