The new interim chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has told the BBC she will do “whatever it takes” to reform the embattled legal appeals body.
Dame Vera Baird KC said the CCRC seemed “incapable of learning from their mistakes” and she wanted to “root out” the culture causing them.
She has has been tasked by the government with carrying out a review of the CCRC and to increase public confidence in the organisation and its work investigating potential miscarriages of justice.
The former victims commissioner and government minister was appointed on Tuesday after her predecessor Helen Pitcher quit following the fall-out from the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Dame Vera described the CCRC as a “hugely important organisation for our criminal justice system” but criticised the agency in its current state.
“They seem incapable of learning from their mistakes,” she said, later referencing that Mr Malkinson’s case was not dissimilar to that of Victor Nealon – a man who also spent 17 years behind bars after wrongfully being convicted of attempted rape.
“Even as the CCRC was looking at an identical case in Malkinson [they were] failing to refer to [past cases],” Dame Vera said. “There is some inability to grasp the level of failure that is going on.”
She also said she is writing to body’s chief executive Karen Kneller to “discuss her position” and future.
Mr Malkinson was accused in 2003 of raping a woman in Greater Manchester. He was later convicted and jailed for life despite no DNA linking him to the crime.
He spent 17 years in prison – during which time he applied twice for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC but was turned down – and was eventually released in December 2020.
Only after new evidence pointed to another potential suspect in January 2023 was his case referred to the Court of Appeal. Mr Malkinson’s conviction was overturned in July 2023.
A year later, an independent review found Mr Malkinson had been completely failed by the CCRC with the damning report concluding he could have been freed five years after being initially imprisoned.
The handling of the case led to Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood seeking to sack Ms Pitcher as CCRC chair.
She later resigned in January.
When asked if she fears there may be other cases similar to Malkinson’s out there, Dame Vera said there is doubt around whether the CCRC is doing their job in a “rigorous and positive way at all”.
“There is a question mark over that,” she said, “which stems from the cases we know that have been catastrophically handled. I think as we dig a little deeper, and as I talk to people who tried to get cases referred, we may find more.”
Since the Malkinson case the CCRC has initiated an internal review of cases in which DNA was an element in convictions of people for the most serious crimes.
As well as planning to meet with Ms Kneller, she said she intends to talk to lawyers and some of the people who have not had their miscarriages of justice properly referred.
Dame Vera, a criminal barrister, became an MP in 2001 and was solicitor general during Gordon Brown’s administration between 2007 and 2010, one of the top legal posts in government.
She went on to become the police and crime commissioner for Northumbria Police and then the victims commissioner for England and Wales between 2019 and 2022.
