A man who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit has said £1 million is “not enough” to compensate him for his ordeal.
Andrew Malkinson criticised the maximum amount of compensation payable under the miscarriage of justice compensation scheme – £1 million for more than 10 years’ imprisonment – the Daily Mail reported on Monday.
Appeal judges quashed the 57-year-old’s conviction on July 26 after DNA linking another man to the crime was produced.
He told the newspaper: “It’s pretty lamentable. £1 million sounds like a lot of money, but that represents nearly two decades of living hell and lost opportunities and lost love and everything else that makes life precious.
“It’s capped at ten years, but what happens to people like me who’ve spent much longer than ten years (in prison), almost double? It seems very unfair.
“I don’t think any amount would be enough, but it should be significantly higher than it is.”
Mr Malkinson is now pressing for further reforms after it was announced on Sunday that wrongly convicted people will no longer face having living costs covering their time in prison docked from compensation payments after ministers issued fresh guidance.
“It says a lot about our justice system that this perverse rule was introduced in the first place,” he told the Daily Mail.
“I hope the minister will now meet with me to discuss the many other reforms needed to stop others having to fight for 20 years to get justice.”
Justice Secretary Alex Chalk KC made the reform with immediate effect on Sunday.
Downing Street indicated that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak believed the deductions were unfair amid demands to drop the charges.
Mr Malkinson had expressed concern that the rules meant expenses could be deducted from any compensation payment he may be awarded to cover the costs of his jail term.
To suddenly show contrition now, at the 11th hour, seems very hollow. I do not believe them. And I do not think they care about me, or about the truth— Andrew Malkinson on Greater Manchester Police
After he was freed, Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Jackson of Greater Manchester Police apologised to Mr Malkinson for the “grave miscarriage of justice” he endured, and offered to meet him.
But he told the newspaper: “I do not want to be in the room with anyone from that police force, of whatever rank.
“To suddenly show contrition now, at the 11th hour, seems very hollow. I do not believe them. And I do not think they care about me, or about the truth.”
He likened prison to a “North Korean totalitarian state with Big Brother watching over you” and said he was afraid of being attacked by other inmates, as a person convicted of a sex offence kept on a vulnerable prisoners wing.
“You’d think that would offer some protection, but in fact there are prisoners who have been transferred from the mains,” Mr Malkinson said.
“I spent a lot of the time being terrified.
“You know when you are on the bus and there is one lunatic who wants to sit beside you, and everyone tries to avoid him? It’s like that, but you can’t get off the bus. There was a murder on the wing.
“There were people who hanged themselves. You feel you could easily be stabbed. Someone could come in at any moment and shank you.”
He reportedly said he struggles with how to deal with women since his release.
On whether he feels he could ever have a relationship again, Mr Malkinson said: “I don’t know if I’m too damaged, because I am damaged.
“It would be nice to think that I could, but I can’t see it yet.”
Mr Malkinson was wrongly found guilty of raping a woman in Greater Manchester in 2003 and the next year was jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years.
He served 10 more years because he maintained his innocence.
