\n<\/p>\n
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) must urgently improve its investigations to avoid a repeat of failings such as those in the Andrew Malkinson scandal, a watchdog has found.<\/p>\n
Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, delivered the warning after carrying out an independent inspection of casework by the body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice.<\/p>\n
The CCRC has been heavily criticised for its handling of the Malkinson case, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history. Its chief executive and chair resigned in the fallout and the former victims\u2019 commissioner Dame Vera Baird was drafted in as interim chair to overhaul the organisation.<\/p>\n
In a report released on Thursday, the watchdog said the \u201clack of proactive, effective casework quality assurance is a significant gap that the CCRC must address urgently\u201d.<\/p>\n
Watchdog staff examined a sample of 60 cases and made 34 recommendations to tackle a string of \u201cweaknesses\u201d, delays and inefficiencies.<\/p>\n
Rogers told reporters the CCRC could \u201cimprove substantially and deliver a much better service\u201d by bringing in the recommendations, but changes \u201cwon\u2019t guarantee there won\u2019t be another high-profile failure\u201d.<\/p>\n
With a focus on \u201cquality and review of casework, better case strategy, much more monitoring of case progress, challenging unnecessary work, then cases in the CCRC should not get to the position of the Andrew Malkinson case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Malkinson served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit and was knocked back twice by the CCRC until his legal team carried out crucial DNA testing that was then repeated by the commission and led to his release.<\/p>\n
A review found he could have been released 10 years earlier if the CCRC had obtained new DNA evidence as early as 2009. Thousands of cases are being reviewed after the bungled handling of the case.<\/p>\n
The real rapist, Paul Quinn, was handed a 21-year prison sentence last month.<\/p>\n
According to the inspection report, the CCRC is dealing with 102 long-running cases and has seen a \u201csustained rise\u201d in the number of applications over the last few years, with 1,841 made in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
Rogers described the body as having a \u201cchequered history\u201d and \u201ccultural issues\u201d, but said ultimately it was fit for purpose.<\/p>\n
Staff were committed to their work and made \u201csound conclusions\u201d on cases, but needed to avoid \u201cunnecessary lines of inquiry\u201d and pursuing \u201cinvestigatory routes that are nugatory\u201d, and instead focus on probing \u201cthe right things\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThere have been a number of very high-profile failures, which have led to a lot of criticism, but generally I think the CCRC, and in the cases we looked at, got the decision right eventually, and it\u2019s the \u2018eventually\u2019 word that we are concerned about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think there are cultural issues in the organisation. Overall our judgment is they are not a failing organisation. There are quite a lot of things they need to do but ultimately they are fit for purpose,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) must urgently improve its investigations to avoid a repeat of failings such as those in the Andrew Malkinson scandal, a watchdog has found. Anthony Rogers, the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, delivered the warning after carrying out an independent inspection of casework by the body that investigates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3767,6999,4516,1894,771,24697,1085,2315,20499],"class_list":{"0":"post-50837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-cases","9":"tag-commission","10":"tag-criminal","11":"tag-failings","12":"tag-improve","13":"tag-malkinson","14":"tag-review","15":"tag-told","16":"tag-urgently"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}