Toby Wilton on BBC Radio 4 Today discussing Andrew Malkinson inquiry
19 Oct 2023
Hickman & Rose’s Toby Wilton has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to argue that the planned public inquiry into the miscarriage of justice suffered by his client, Andy Malkinson, be converted into a statutory inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005.
Toby explained how a statutory inquiry’s power to compel witnesses to give evidence – and force disclosure of documents – would enable it to uncover the full truth about failures by Greater Manchester Police, the CPS, the Criminal Cases Review Commission and others which led to Mr Malkinson spending 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
He pointed out that the IOPC is investigating possible criminal offences or misconduct by police in this case, and as such it is ‘naïve’ to assume that because GMP have promised to cooperate with a non-statutory inquiry, GMP or individual officers will do so appropriately.
Also appearing on the programme was Sir Bob Neill MP, Conservative chairman of the Justice Select Committee, who argued in favour of the status quo and said a statutory inquiry would likely take much longer.
Toby responded: “That’s not really borne out by previous non-statutory inquiries for example the Daniel Morgan inquiry […which…] took years and years.
“When giving their report, the panel said one of the reasons it took so long was, despite the Metropolitan Police (as it was in that case) committing to co-operating fully they, in effect, hadn’t done.
“That lack of statutory powers is what took it so long. Andy’s primary concern with the inquiry is that it gets full and complete answers to what happened.”
Listen to Toby’s full interview with Amol Rajan from 1:50:00 here.
