The chairman and chief executive of the ‘dying’ CCRC should resign immediately – The Justice Gap

The former attorney general told peers that the miscarriage of justice watchdog was “moribund” and called on both its chairman and chief executive to resign immediately. Yesterday, during a debate in the House of Lords on the King’s Speech, Lord Edward Garnier KC drew attention to last week’s damning report into the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) by barrister Chris Henley KC following its serial failures in handling the wrongful conviction of Andrew Malkinson. “The Henley report opens an urgent public debate on a state of affairs that those responsible for the CCRC should be ashamed of,” Garnier said. “It should cause them to consider their positions.”

CCRC chair Helen Pitcher has apparently decided to defend herself, insisting she is “the best person” for the job, despite personal criticism from Henley, as well as calls from Andrew Malkinson and new Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood that she should go. “I have been recognised by the MoJ for the significant turnaround at the CCRC,” she told the Guardian’s Emily Dugan. “…I genuinely believe I am the best person to take this case forward, for as long as I have the opportunity.”

Chris Henley criticised Pitcher for failing to apologise for the group’s repeated squandering of opportunities for a miscarriage of justice that led to the man being jailed for 17 years, and for inappropriately “taking credit” for his acquittal while the investigation was being led by legal charity APPEAL.

Edward Garnier co-authored the influential Westminster Commission on Miscarriages of Justice report, published in 2021, which recommended the creation of an ongoing Law Commission review of criminal appeals. The report was highly critical of the watchdog. The Conservative peer said yesterday: “Having read the Henley report, I believe that the CCRC clearly needs new leadership. If the chairman and chief executive do not resign immediately, they should be replaced.”

Garnier continued: “The CCRC cannot move forward with them in office. We need a full-time executive chairman, with at least the rank of a supreme court judge, and full-time commissioners, not the current part-time staff. It needs better and better-equipped case managers. The commission, as currently organized and run, is dead.”

The attorney said the 2021 report was written “in ignorance of the Malkinson case”. “But you only have to read the Henley report to see that even without the abhorrent facts of that case, we reached very similar conclusions”. He called for reform of the CCRC’s controversial “real possibility” test to allow the watchdog to refer more cases and “encourage a more independent way of thinking”. “The commission is currently too different from the Court of Appeal,” he said. “It needs bold and determined leadership. That’s my experience… it just doesn’t get it.”

Garnier met with Helen Pitcher after publicly criticising her refusal to apologise last year after Malkinson’s conviction was overturned. “I came away from that meeting even more convinced that the CRCC needs new leadership. If the Westminster committee knew in 2022 what Mr Henley is telling us now, we would be less kind.”

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