Our criminal justice system is rightly loaded in favour of letting those who are probably guilty walk free to avoid locking up the innocent for crimes they did not commit. Juries are directed to convict a defendant only if they are sure of their guilt. But terrible miscarriages of justice can and do happen.
There are supposed to be safeguards in the system to help expose these. Yet a new independent review of the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson – who was imprisoned for 17 years for a violent rape he did not commit – shows just how threadbare that safety net really is.
