Rapist jailed three years after wrong man cleared
Greater Manchester PoliceA sex offender who was found guilty of a rape which saw an innocent man jailed for 17 years has been sentenced to 24 years.
Paul Quinn, 52, attacked the woman in Little Hulton, Salford, in 2003 but Andrew Malkinson was wrongly convicted the following year in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court heard Quinn's DNA was later found on the woman's vest and he had searched online to see how long police kept samples.
The father-of-six, of Exeter, Devon, and formerly of Little Hulton, Salford, was also found guilty of strangulation and causing grievous bodily harm.
The court heard Quinn attacked the young mother as she walked home in the early hours of the morning on 19 July 2003.
She was brutally beaten, bitten and her cheekbone was fractured before being strangled unconscious and raped.
Malkinson, who had been working as a security guard at a local shopping centre at the time of the attack, was wrongly picked out at an identity parade.
He protested his innocence but was jailed in 2004.
Malkinson, originally from Grimsby, failed in several appeals against his conviction in 2012 and 2020.
He was only released in 2020 after 17 years in jail, with his conviction finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023.
PA MediaThe victim, referred to as a "hero" by the judge, said in an impact statement: "For him it was one night of his life, for me it was one night that changed my life.
"After 20 years I now have justice but that does not change the fact that two lives have been impacted in such a way.
"I am aware that someone has had 17 years robbed as a result of this case and that stays with me.
"As for me, the impact of what happened that day has stayed with me and will remain with me for life."
She added that every day she looked at her face and saw the disfigurement and scarring that had been inflicted upon her in the attack.
"It is a permanent reminder of that night and what I experienced. I have to live with that."
GMPThe court heard Quinn was a convicted sex offender at the time of the attack.
He was cautioned in 1986 for two counts of indecent assault against a female, when he was 12 years old.
In November 1992, he was convicted of two counts of underage sex, an offence which today would be classified as rape.
Mr Justice Bright said Quinn was aged 15 or 16 and the girl was 13 at the time of the offences.
It was this offence that led to his DNA being taken by police a decade later, which ultimately linked him to the 2003 rape.
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