The Embarrassing Failures of the Criminal Cases Review Commission

As far as resignations go, Helen Pitcher’s attempt to step down as chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has to go down as one of the worst.

For a start, it should have happened a lot sooner.

After Andrew Malkinson was finally exonerated in July 2023, an independent review by Chris Henley KC found that the CCRC had failed to comprehend the forensic evidence, which resulted in Malkinson spending a decade longer in prison than he ever needed to.

The incoming Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, called on Pitcher to step down in July 2024 when that report was published. Instead, she decided to hang on until an independent review panel concluded this week that she was no longer fit to hold her position.

Instead of resigning with dignity, Pitcher continue to scrabble in her resignation letter that was described as “shameless” by Malkinson.

She argued that she was chosen to be a scapegoat and that it had been decided a long time ago that her head was going to be the one to roll.

Pitcher also used the opportunity to say that “there was no evidence before [the panel] to justify a conclusion that any other chair would have acted in any other way”.

However, this ignores the fact that there are a number of ways in which Pitcher’s actions made the situation worse throughout the whole Andrew Malkinson affair.