An ‘evil’ rapist who nearly killed a stranger in an extremely violent attack and then watched on as an innocent man languished in prison for it has been jailed for 24 years.
Paul Quinn, 52, targeted a lone woman while she walked home alone in Little Hulton, Salford, in the early hours of July 19, 2003.
The victim, then in her 30s and a mum to young children, was strangled until she passed out into a deep state of unconsciousness, then badly beaten and twice raped in a ‘prolonged assault’.
Local security guard Andrew Malkinson became a second victim in the case when he was wrongly identified as the perpetrator and jailed a year later in one of the worst ever miscarriages of justice.
Quinn, who lived less than a mile from the scene and has convictions for sex offenses going back to when he was 12, was arrested almost two decades later after advances in DNA testing meant in 2022 a billion-to-one match of his DNA profile was made with saliva left on the woman’s vest top.
By then, Mr Malkinson, from Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire, had made multiple failed appeals.
Now aged 60, he was only released in 2020 after 17 years in jail, with his conviction finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2023.
Mr Justice Bright jailed Quinn for 21 years today at Manchester Crown Court, with an extended three years for dangerousness.
The judge referred to the woman as the ‘hero’ of the case, rather than as a victim or survivor, in his remarks as he passed sentence.
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He said: ‘She, not you Paul Quinn, is the person from this case who I will remember for the rest of my days.
‘She is truly a hero.’
Mr Justice Bright said it was obvious how ‘excruciating’ it was for her to come back to court for a second time.
‘She is a remarkable person.’
He continued: ‘One unusual feature of this case is that, while the person most directly affected by the offenses was the woman you attacked so viciously and raped, there have also been dire effects on Mr Malkinson.’
The judge said Mr Malkinson’s wrongful conviction was attributable to mistakes made by police, prosecutors and scientists rather than to Quinn.
But he added: ‘However, I find myself unable to ignore the extraordinary circumstances involved from your perspective.
‘It is utterly clear that you knew throughout that another man had been arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned.
‘You knew that his conviction was wrongful. You also knew that it was extremely useful to you. It must have preyed on your conscience that another man was in prison, in effect serving your sentence.
‘It would be entirely wrong to compare the indirect evil that you have done to Mr Malkinson with the direct physical evil that you have done to the heroic woman who suffered at your hands that night.
‘But I do consider your conduct to both of them evil, and the harm done to both of them must be reflected in your sentence.’
Judge’s extraordinary tribute to ‘hero’ at heart of case
‘It has long troubled me that our judicial system has utterly inadequate terms for the person to whom the crime is done.
We use the word complainant, but this sounds like someone griping about a trivial grievance.
We use the word victim, but this sounds like someone with no agency who merely passively endures whatever is inflicted on them and lacks the gumption to do anything about it.
Using these terms is demeaning.
No crime ever feels trivial to the person affected by it. The crimes dealt with in this court are all very far from trivial.
Cases like this one are as serious as it gets.
Moreover, anyone who supports a prosecution that is brought to trial is far from passive.
It is a lengthy and demanding process that requires courage, persistence, and willpower.
Far from lacking agency, such people have gumption by the truckload.
Rape cases are perhaps the most striking examples of this.
The people – usually women, but not always – who suffer a rape, which then results in a trial, go through a very great deal to help our judicial system.
Every single one of them should be thanked and admired unstintingly by every single one of us.
Much has been said in the last several years about how uncomfortable our processes are for people who have endured rape, having to tell their story over and over again to the police, to the CPS, and ultimately to the jury.
I am well aware that there are nowadays scores of carefully trained and sensitive professionals in the police, in the CPS, in witness support, and in several other bodies who go to great lengths to care for and help the people affected.
I wish that the excellent work they do were better publicised.
Nevertheless, it is an undeniably uncomfortable process.
The people who put themselves through it are, in my view, heroic.
For me, the only word for them is not complainant or victim, nor even as is sometimes now termed them, survivor.
The only word that fits is hero.
That is how I choose to think of the woman at the heart of this case.
She, not you, Paul Quinn, is the person from this case whom I will remember for the rest of my days.
She is truly a hero, that is the term I used to refer to her from this point onwards, in part because I do not wish to use her name, but mainly because she deserves it.
Our hero gave evidence at the first trial in 2004
That will have been hard enough, and she must have thought at the time that that particular ordeal, at least, was over and done with
But a few years ago the police had to break the news to her that it seemed that the wrong man had been convicted, so she might have to go through the whole process again.
She came here, and she did exactly that. It was obvious to everyone here how excruciating she found it to come back to court a second time, and how much it took out of her.
Remarkably, she gave her evidence in plain sight of you, Paul Quinn, without asking for the protection of a screen. She gave her evidence clearly in an entirely straightforward and direct manner, with no histrionics and no obvious rancor, but every step through the courtroom to the witness box looked agonising, and she clearly suffered horribly as she retold what happened, which she did with quiet dignity, but through a constant stream of tears.
No one who watched that can have been left unmoved.
She is a remarkable person, and I say all of this to give public tribute to her and to others like her, they do not come here for vengeance, which we do not give them.
They do not come expecting closure, which is a largely mythical phenomenon, especially after an event such as rape.
They come because they want the truth to be heard, and because they know it is the right thing to do.
Without them, it would not be possible to bring the guilty ones to justice, and this is why she, far above any of the police or the lawyers or the DNA scientists, is the hero of this story.’
‘After 20 years, I now have justice’
The woman Quinn attacked said in a statement: ‘After 20 years, I now have justice but that does not change the fact that two lives have been impacted in such a way.
‘I am aware that someone has had 17 years robbed as a result of this case and that stays with me.
‘As for me, the impact of what happened that day has stayed with me and will remain with me for life.
‘Every day I look at my face and see the disfigurement, the scarring. It is a permanent reminder of that night and what I experienced. I have to live with that.’
The trial heard Quinn stalked his victim, in her 30s, as she walked home, dragging her from the street down a motorway embankment.
He battered her, fracturing her cheekbone, and she was strangled unconscious and twice raped.
He also bit her left nipple, almost severing it, but left behind on her vest top his saliva from which his DNA was recovered years later.
No DNA evidence had linked Mr Malkinson to the crime but he was picked out at an identity parade.
When the victim gave evidence against Mr Malkinson in 2003 she had doubts she had picked out the right man, but police dismissed this as ‘just trial nerves’.
And the DNA sample from the victim’s vest top, only recovered and identified in 2007, was analyzed and ruled out Mr Malkinson, a development which ‘ought to have set alarm bells ringing’, the court heard.
The crime scene sample was identified as coming from ‘Unknown Male 1’.
Quinn had a history of sex offending and violence towards women and had been cautioned for indecent assault in 1986, aged just 12, and in November 1992, aged 16, convicted of two counts of under-age sex with a girl aged 12.
In 2012, Quinn was visited by police to take his DNA to put on the national database, during a national operation to harvest samples from known sex offenders.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission twice refused an appeal by Mr Malkinson, in 2012 and then again in 2020.
As DNA testing advanced over the years, in August 2022 news broke police had matched the vest top DNA sample to another man.
The development had a ‘profound’ effect on Quinn’s internet usage, his trial heard.
Quinn told jurors it was a ‘complete coincidence’ he had begun scouring the news for information on the Malkinson case and repeatedly searched Google, asking: ‘How long is DNA kept in database’, and, ‘Why do I keep sweating all the time…’
He also searched up ‘wrongful convictions’ in the UK and had begun to ‘fear a knock on the door’ was coming.
By the time of his arrest in December 2022, Quinn had divorced in 2016 and moved to Exeter, Devon, working as a delivery driver, following a dispute over drugs in his hometown of Salford.
In court he claimed he had led a highly promiscuous, party lifestyle of drink and drugs each weekend for more than 15 years.
Aged 29 at the time of the rape, married with two children, he claimed to have had casual sex with hundreds if not thousands of local women and could have come into contact with the victim and his DNA transferred.
His claims were rejected by the jury.
Detectives say they believe Quinn may be responsible for other offenses and are looking at any links he may have to unsolved crimes.
Three stranger rapes in Greater Manchester have been examined.
Police have renewed appeals for any more victims to come forward.
Detective Chief Superintendent Rebecca McKendrick said: ‘When Paul Quinn attacked and raped a lone woman late that night in July 2003, he knew what he had done.
‘He knew his crime was horrific and he knew how cowardly he was for watching another man go to prison.
‘Twenty years later, he denied it – telling us he would have been ashamed of committing such an offense. Well tonight I hope that shame runs deep to his core.
‘We know this outcome has come two decades too late for those impacted by this case. However, we will not allow time to be a barrier to justice for anyone who has further information about Paul Quinn and any further potential sexual offending.
‘To commit such a violent attack raises concerns that there may be other victims out there.
‘If you believe you have been a victim or have information you have not yet shared with us, please know we want to hear from you. We promise you that we will support you and we will listen to you.’
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