A Salford rape victim told a court she had doubts after picking out a man at an identity parade who was later wrongly jailed for 17 years but was told by police it was just “trial nerves”.
Andrew Malkinson was identified by the woman after she was brutally attacked and raped in Little Hulton, Salford, in 2003.
Mr Malkinson, working as a security guard, was convicted, spent 17 years in jail and became the “victim of a most terrible miscarriage of justice, one of the worst there has been”, Manchester Crown Court heard.
The rape victim is now giving trial evidence a second time, after Mr Malkinson was exonerated and fresh DNA evidence linked another local man, Paul Quinn, 51, to the attack, which he denies.
The woman, at the time in her 30s and a mother of young children, was walking home in the early hours of the morning in the height of summer when she was attacked from behind.
She was strangled unconscious, beaten and twice raped in a “prolonged assault” down a motorway embankment.
The woman picked out Mr Malkinson at a “VIPER” digital ID parade days after the attack on July 19 2003, but at the trial the following year, doubts crept in.
But she told the jury that police had told her not to worry, as it was normal to have second thoughts due to trial nerves.
Lisa Wilding KC, representing Quinn, said: “At no stage, after that day in 2004, did you go to the police and say, ‘I have got that wrong’.”
The woman, who cannot be identified, replied: “I did. I remember one of the trials telling one of them, I was not too sure it was the right man and they said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just trial nerves’.
“I was very naive, I was scared coming into the court. I was reassured it was fine, it was the right man.
“I said, ‘I was not sure it was the right man’ and he said it was trial nerves and a lot of people think this and it will be OK.”
Ms Wilding continued: “Who said that? A policeman?”
“Yes,” the witness replied.
Ms Wilding continued: “If that was right, you could have said, ‘I’m not sure’ but you didn’t.”
The witness replied: “No, because I was reassured, I got nervous and the evidence, the process of the court, it was not just on my identification. The other things will tell whether he was guilty or not.
“I said I was unsure because I had not seen the other gentleman with glasses on, so it threw me a bit. I was unsure, then reassured, it was just nerves.
“I was reassured that it was normal to have second thoughts.”
Earlier, jurors heard Mr Malkinson first appealed against his conviction in 2006, but this was dismissed.
He then made two more attempts, in 2009 and 2018, to ask the Criminal Cases Review Commission to send his case to the Court of Appeal, but both times were rejected.
His final attempt in 2021 led to his appeal against his conviction being allowed by the Court of Appeal.
Quinn, aged 29 at the time of the attack and who lived locally before moving to Exeter, Devon, was only linked to the crime years later, after scientific advances matched his DNA profile from samples left on the victim.
The DNA findings estimate it would be at least one billion times more likely if Quinn was a contributor to the sample found at the crime scene than if he was not.
Jurors heard after news broke in July 2022, that detectives had linked an unknown suspect through a DNA breakthrough, police analysis of the defendant’s internet usage showed Quinn had searched Google for, “Why do I keep sweating all the time?” and “How long is DNA kept in database?”.
The defendant has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape, grievous bodily harm and attempting to choke or strangle his victim to render her unconscious while he carried out the attack.
The trial continues.
By Pat Hurst, Press Association
