Criminal Case Review chief ‘scapegoat’ resigns after historic failures
The chair of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) Helen Pitcher has resigned, claiming she was made a “scapegoat” for the failures that led to a man being wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 17 years.
In her resignation letter, as seen by CityAM, Pitcher hits back at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), stating she regrets former Tory Ministers “chose to make me a scapegoat at an early stage”
Pitcher is also the chair of Advanced Boardroom Excellence and serves as non-executive director at UB UK (part of Yildz Holdings).
Her resignation comes after newly appointed Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in July last year that Pitcher was “unfit to fulfil her duties” following a report into the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson.
Barrister Chris Henley KC’s review found that Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a 2003 rape, was wrongfully convicted, and could have been exonerated almost a decade earlier.
Malkinson applied to the CCRC for review in 2009 and a charity appeal in 2018, but both were denied.
Pitcher wrote “Whilst I have never met you, I do not criticise you for the decision to convene an Independent Panel as you inherited this decision from the previous Lord Chancellor.”
She explained that she “opted to go to Panel as I had not had the opportunity to input my views. The Independent Panel failed to agree unanimously as to the appropriate course of action.”
“Although they made findings against me, in reality there was no evidence before them to justify a conclusion that any other Chair would have acted in any other way.”
“A head had to roll, and I was chosen for that role,” she stated.
Pitcher pointed out that the original rejection of Malkinson’s appeal was almost a decade before she was chair.
She went on to state that she understood the fury over this grave miscarriage of justice.
However, she hightailed that “serious questions remain for Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service.”
“I note that the DPP and the Chief Constable of the GMP have not been the subject of comparable criticism.”
Pitcher stated that it feels “unfair” that she was singled out, but not others.
She concluded in her letter that she worries “it may prove extremely difficult to find a new Chair” as “they will be held personally responsible for historical failures over which they will have had no say.”