I disowned my brother and feared for my life after he was jailed for rape – I’m haunted by guilt now he’s been cleared

GUILTY. Just one word was all it took for the lives of Andrew Malkinson and his family to be destroyed.

Sister Sarah hadn't seen her brother in ten years and did not want to believe that he was capable of the brutal, near-fatal rape he had been accused of.

But when a judge passed down a hefty sentence, she accepted that Andrew, now 57, must have done it - even though it broke her heart.

In BBC2 documentary The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars, Sarah explains: “My brother had been convicted and you kind of like believe that he must be this person that they are saying he is.

“As much as I don't really want to say this, but I am going to say it, like I didn't want anything to do with them. Which affected me. Because it's like, 'I don't want anything to do with him.' I did that.

“My mindset was, I don't want anything to do with him because how can he do that to a woman?”

Andrew, from Salford, Greater Manchester, was wrongfully jailed in 2003 for the horrifying rape of a 33-year-old woman, with his constant denials falling on deaf ears.

He hoped that the legal system would prove the accusations wrong when he supplied DNA to show he couldn't be a match.

When that was ignored, Andrew then placed faith in the jury to realise that he couldn't be at fault for the sex attack.

Every single time he was failed.

It took 20 years for his conviction, which based on no DNA evidence and two unreliable witnesses, to be overturned.

Andrew spent 17 years in prison for the crime, and while his mother did all she could to help him get the conviction overturned, his sister kept her distance.

“I was like, actually really, really scared,” Sarah, who is now wracked by guilt, said.

“I've got a child, I've got a roof to put over my kid's head. And I didn't want people to know that that was my brother. Andrew found out he had a different dad at 16.

“He actually changed his name when he found his real dad.

"And I was so pleased that he had, because what would happen to me and my mum being on the estate?

“Would we be spat out in the street? Would we get windows put in for it? We wouldn't want to go out. You become a bit of a recluse.”

Would we be spat out in the street? Would we get windows put in for it?

Sarah, Andrew's sister

Before Andrew was sent to prison, Sarah hadn't known what to believe - especially considering his kind nature growing up.

She said: “When we were growing up, he was always really kind, caring. Always had his head in a book.

“But as we've got older, we drifted apart, he'd been travelling about, and he loved seeing the world.”

The distance between them left Sarah questioning if Andrew was the boy she remembered or some different man.

Mum's battle

While Sarah kept her head down and prayed no one would realise they were related, her mum, Tricia, was trying to find a way to save her son.

In the documentary Tricia reflected on the fateful day in court saying: “It was like I'd been pushed in an abyss. I know that Andrew didn't do that. It didn't enter my head that he would be found guilty.”

She later goes on to say: “I didn't speak about it to people. Because the reaction is well, you will believe them because you're his mother.

“It's smarter to save your breath and put it to better use. I spent half my life in the library because I didn't have a computer then.

“I was in the library, that often was my second home. The information that I've gathered, and I had it printed out and sent to Andrew, when you take it on your own, and you're not a legal person, it's very hard.”

While Tricia and Sarah did what they could to go on with their lives, it was Andrew's old friend Karin Schuitemaker from the Netherlands who found the organisation that would get him out.

It feels like the walls are closing in on me, crushing me

Andrew Malkinson

She wrote to charity and law practice Appeal who specialised in having wrongful convictions overturned - they took on the case and eventually got him exonerated.

Karin never doubted her ex-boyfriend's innocence and wanted to do all she could as a friend to help him.

In a letter Andrew sent to her after his first attempt to appeal failed, he wrote: “It feels like the walls are closing in on me, crushing me. My life sentence means that I could be here for many years, 10, 15 or 20 or more.”

Free at last

When Andrew was finally released from HMP North Sea Camp in December 2020, he was met by the Appeal team, who brought essentials with them and even treats from Karin in the Netherlands.

The team helping to overturn his conviction also sorted a flat for him which they painted and furnished, but sadly he struggled to cope outside of prison and ended up living with his lawyer, Emily, in Devon.

He was sat with her at home in 2020 when they found out the Criminal Cases Review Commission would take on his case - it was the second time Andrew had appealed to them.

He had initially written to them in 2009 to look at his cases, but they refused.

While he had been released from incarceration, he was on a lifetime licence with strict conditions which prevented him from going abroad.

He said he "didn't really feel free" as a result.

I imagined I would die in prison, murdered by another prisoner

Andrew Malkinson

The charity helped build his case - including tracking down DNA samples on the victims' clothes held at an independent laboratory after Greater Manchester Police destroyed the evidence - to prove Andrew wasn't a match.

They also discovered that both witnesses, Michael Seward and Beverley Craig, used to convict him were unreliable and had 26 convictions for dishonesty offences between them.

During Andrew's trial, they had been presented as honest and reliable.

Andrew was eventually acquitted by the Court of Appeal on July 25, 2023.

Following the judgement, he said: “On August 2, 2003, I was kidnapped by the State. It has taken nearly 20 years to persuade my kidnappers to let me go.

“Seventeen years, four months and 16 days of that time was spent in prison. All that time the real perpetrator, the real dangerous person, was free.

“Now I am left outside this court without an apology, without an explanation, jobless, homeless, expected to simply slip back into the world.

“I spent 17 years on my guard against every threat. I imagined I would die in prison, murdered by another prisoner. I am not a liar. I am not in denial. Greater Manchester Police are liars and they are in denial.”

Following his successful appeal, Assistant Chief Constable Sarah Jackson of Greater Manchester Police said: “We are truly sorry to Mr Malkinson that he is the victim of such a grave miscarriage of justice, in being convicted of a crime he did not commit and serving a 17-year custodial sentence.”

She also said: "Whilst we hope this outcome gives him a long overdue sense of justice, we acknowledge that it does not return the years he has lost. I have offered to meet with him to personally deliver this apology.

“We are sorry that in this case, the judicial process failed, and the wrong man was convicted.”

Guilt struggles

Sarah was at the court of appeal with her mum and other supporters of Andrew to see the conviction overturned.

Despite the joy she felt for her brother, it has left her with lasting guilt.

In the documentary, she said: “All the thoughts that you've got about your brother kind of disappeared.

“Because you know for definite that wasn't him that did it. I've got really bad guilt from it.

“It's really bad to think that my brother was meant to have done what he's done. And I believed that [he was], as much as I didn't want to believe that it was like he must have done it.

“I feel really bad about that.”

An independent inquiry into his case was launched and Andrew with help applied for compensation for his wrongful conviction - but it can take years to come through.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “The Lord Chancellor has been clear Andrew Malkinson suffered an atrocious miscarriage of justice and he deserves thorough and honest answers as to how and why it took so long to uncover.

“The Criminal Cases Review Commission, Crown Prosecution Service and Greater Manchester Police have all pledged their full cooperation to the independent inquiry into the handling of his conviction and subsequent appeals.”

Prison was such a dangerous place. It was like a pressure cooker

Andrew Malkinson

Spending 17 years inside, starting on the sex offenders wing at HMP Frankland, has left Andrew struggling to adapt to normal life.

“I get panic attacks and I often spent too much time thinking about it,” Andrew says in the documentary.

Later he said: “Prison was such a dangerous place. It was like a pressure cooker, you know, people doing long sentences. There was a murder where I was.

“You really are hyper vigilant because you're watching everybody. It can turn in an instant, people can be smiling at you, and they might have a razor blade melted into a toothbrush - that was another favourite weapon.