Andy Malkinson: Seventeen Years Painting

Andy Malkinson was jailed for life in 2004 for a violent rape of which he has consistently maintained innocence. If he had confessed to a crime which he said he didn't commit, he could have been released years earlier. The charity APPEAL found compelling undisclosed evidence due to which the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) have granted right to a new appeal, after Malkinson had spent seventeen-plus years in prison. Andy was arrested and jailed for this offence a year after the New Labour government's Criminal Justice Act made the prosecution of such on steadily less evidence much easier. This portrait was inspired by investigative reporter Bill Robertson's article on Andy Malkinson's case in CCRC Watch, a division of Dr Michael Naughton's Empowering the Innocent project.