Andy Slaughter MP, who chairs the cross-party Justice Committee, said the CCRC leadership ‘has shown a remarkable inability to learn from its own mistakes’.
Slaughter said: ‘There is clear evidence in our report that the situation for the CCRC has deteriorated significantly and it now requires root and branch reform.’
The committee’s report, Leadership of the Criminal Cases review Commission, published this week, concludes: ‘As a result of our concerns regarding the performance of the CCRC and the unpersuasive evidence Karen Kneller provided to the Committee, we no longer feel that it is tenable for her to continue as Chief Executive of the CCRC.’
In January, the CCRC’s Chair Helen Pitcher, resigned after the Lord Chancellor convened an independent panel to look at concerns raised about both Pitcher’s response to Andrew Malkinson's acquittal and a CCRC Board decision that she stay in post.
Malkinson was wrongfully convicted in 2004, serving 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The CCRC missed opportunities to refer the case and failed to obtain a police file in 2009 and 2018 which would have altered the outcome.
The Justice Committee questioned Kneller, and Amanda Pearce, Casework Operations Director, in April in the absence of a permanent or interim chair.
Its report concludes it should not have taken an independent review for the CCRC to apologise to Malkinson, that the public statements of the CCRC chair following Malkinson’s acquittal were ‘woefully inadequate’ and ‘showed a worrying lack of understanding of the potential damage to the CCRC's reputation and public confidence’.
The Committee criticised the CCRC for not only ‘failing to offer a timely apology’ but ‘seeking to claim credit for the acquittal’.
The CCRC’s handling of the independent review of the case by Chris Henley KC was ‘incompetent’, the Committee said, concluding: ‘The level of delay and the attempt to minimise the damage to the CCRC's reputation were a spectacular failure of leadership.’
A CCRC spokesperson said: ‘We note the recommendations in the Justice Select Committee report and the committee’s view that its findings should “inform the approach of the next chair of the CCRC” in reviewing how we operate.
‘We look forward to an announcement on the appointment of an interim chair and to working with them in an organisation deeply committed to finding, investigating and referring potential miscarriages of justice.’
