Dozens of rape and murder convictions to undergo new DNA testing to determine if there was a miscarriage of justice

Dozens of rape and murder cases from before 2016 will undergo new DNA testing to identify potential wrongful convictions.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has re-examined nearly 5,500 cases that had previously been dismissed due to improvements in DNA analysis technology.

Preliminary investigations last summer found that about a quarter of the cases were in which the identity of the perpetrator was questioned.

Addressing these concerns, it said there were likely dozens of cases where DNA samples could be retested using DNA 17 technology, first introduced in 2014.

According to the Interior Ministry website, DNA-17 technology increases the number of DNA regions examined from 10 to 16 and adds a gender marker: XX for women and XY for men.

Additional regions in DNA-17 reduce the chance that two unrelated individuals have the same characteristics to less than one in a billion.

The test can also collect better, more complete DNA profiles from crime scene samples where the DNA has been degraded or is present in only small amounts.

malkinson case

The CCRC was heavily criticized for the case Andrew MalkinsonA man has been jailed for 17 years for a wrongful rape conviction.

He applied for review in 2009 but was denied in 2012 and again in 2020.

Mr Malkinson only finally succeeded in having his conviction quashed last year.

His lawyer Emily Bolton (from Charity Appeal) said: “This statement is a shocking admission that after the missed opportunity for DNA testing in Andrew Malkinson’s case, the CCRC may have failed to provide evidence for hundreds of other innocent people those who seek justice.

“Had the CCRC started this work as early as 2014 when DNA-17 testing became available, Andrew Malkinson might have been wrongfully imprisoned for several years.

“The scope of this review is currently too limited.”

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The CCRC said it was asking the government for additional funding to allow retesting to be carried out as soon as possible.

This could result in the case being taken to the Court of Appeal and the conviction being quashed.

A spokesman for the CCRC said: “This trawl operation is a major undertaking and the first time we have conducted a trawl operation of this scale.

“This is likely to take considerable time and require significant additional resources on our part so that we can balance this important work with existing case reviews.

“Our purpose is to detect, investigate and refer potential miscarriages of justice, so we must use the opportunities provided by scientific developments to do this.”