Sister of man wrongly jailed for 17 years over a brutal rape he didn’t commit reveals how she’s wracked with guilt after disowning him when he was convicted

The sister of a man wrongly convicted of a rape he did not commit has revealed her guilt after disowning him while he languished in prison for 17 years.

Andrew Malkinson was jailed after a jury convicted him of a brutal rape that left a 33-year-old woman on the brink of death in Little Hulton, Salford, in 2003.

Despite a lack of DNA evidence linking him to the crime and key details about him that did not match the victim’s description of her rapist, Andrew was charged and sentenced to life behind bars.

He would spend the next seventeen years – more than a decade after his minimum term of six and a half years – in prison, maintaining his innocence.

For his sister Sarah, however, the potential burden of her younger brother’s conviction, along with the thought that he may have committed the heinous crime, was too much to bear.

Andrew Malkinson spent 17 years in prison after being convicted of a rape he did not commit. Pictured: Andrew outside the Royal Courts of Justice after he was acquitted in July 2023

Andrew’s half-sister Sarah has revealed the guilt she feels for disowning him after his conviction. Pictured: Sarah outside the Royal Courts of Justice after Andrew was acquitted in July 2023

Andrew and his loved ones have spoken out in a new BBC2 documentary about his case, titled The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars

As their mother Tricia continued to fight to prove Andrew’s innocence, Sarah – who had not seen him for a decade before the trial – kept her distance, fearing the jury was right.

Speaking to filmmakers for a new BBC2 documentary, The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars, she said, as first reported by The sun: ‘My brother was convicted and you actually believe that he must be the person they say he is.

“As much as I don’t want to say this, I’m going to say it anyway, as if I don’t want anything to do with it. What touched 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?”

She added that she was “really, really scared” that people would find out she was related to a man jailed for such a barbaric crime.

Sarah said: ‘I have a child, I have a roof for my child’s head. And I didn’t want people to know that was my brother. Andrew found out at the age of sixteen that he had a different father.

‘He even changed his name when he found his real father.

‘And I was so happy that he did that, because what would happen to me and my mother if we were on the estate?

Mr Malkinson, who was wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Salford, Greater Manchester in 2003

‘Would we be spit out on the street? Should we have windows installed for it? We wouldn’t want to go outside. You become a bit of a hermit.’

Sarah said that when they were growing up together, her brother had been a “kind, caring” boy who was always reading.

However, they had ‘grown apart’ as they grew older, with Andrew traveling around the UK and abroad, leaving Sarah to wonder if the kind-hearted child she had spent her younger years with had changed.

The news that he turned out to be innocent all along was a blow to Sarah, who said that while she was happy her brother was free, she was also wracked with guilt for not believing him.

In the documentary she said: ‘Any thoughts you have about your brother have more or less disappeared.

‘Because you’re sure it wasn’t him who did it. It left me with a lot of guilt.

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

“I feel very bad about that.”

But there was no doubt in his mother’s mind as Tricia continued to fight for his corner as he languished behind bars.

In the BBC documentary, she reflects on the fateful day in court and says: ‘It was like being pushed into an abyss. I know Andrew didn’t do that. It never occurred to me that he would be found guilty.”

She adds, “I haven’t talked to people about it. Because the reaction is good, you will believe them because you are his mother.

‘It is smarter to save your breath and use it better. I spent half my life in the library because I didn’t have a computer then.

‘I sat in the library, which was often my second home. The information I collected, and I had it printed and sent to Andrew, is very difficult if you use it alone and you are not a legal entity.’

Andrew was 37 when he was wrongly accused of raping a mother of two.

He fought for 20 years until the court finally overturned his conviction after forensics implicated another man in the attack.

On July 25 last year he was finally acquitted by the Court of Appeal.

Following the verdict, he said: ‘On August 2, 2003, I was kidnapped by the state. It took almost twenty years to convince my captors to let me go.

‘I spent seventeen years, four months and sixteen days in prison. All this time, the real perpetrator, the real dangerous person, was free.

“Now I stand outside this court without apology, without explanation, jobless, homeless, expected to just slip back into the world.

‘I have been on my guard against every threat for seventeen years. I imagined myself dying in prison, murdered by another inmate. I’m not a liar. I’m not in denial. Greater Manchester Police are liars and in denial.”

Last month the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) issued an unconditional apology to Mr Malkinson following an independent investigation into the handling of the case.

“The CCRC’s delay in apologizing to me has contributed significantly to the mental turmoil I am experiencing as I continue to fight for accountability for what was done to me,” Mr Malkinson said.

“The shortcomings of the CCRC have caused me a world of pain. Even the police immediately apologized. It feels like Helen Pitcher is only now apologizing because the CCRC has been discovered and the last escape hatch has been closed for them.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: ‘The Lord Chancellor has made it clear that Andrew Malkinson has suffered a horrific miscarriage of justice and he deserves thorough and honest answers about how and why it has taken so long to bring this to light.

‘The Criminal Cases Review Commission, Crown Prosecution Service and Greater Manchester Police have all committed to cooperating fully with the independent investigation into the handling of his conviction and subsequent appeals.’

The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars airs on BBC2 on June 6 at 9pm