![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/how-i-survived-as-an-innocent-man-in-prison-for-17-years/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/0_Andrew-Malkinson-hearing.jpg&description=Andy Malkinson was falsely imprisoned for 17 years and fell into an 'unspeakable' depression. If he had followed a prison officer's advice and confessed to the crime, he could have been out after 7 - but he refused to give in. A man who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongly found guilty of rape has told of his refusal to give a false confession, which would have seen him released a decade earlier. Andy Malkinson 'collapsed into utter depression' when he was jailed in July 2003, accused of the horrendous strangulation and rape of a young woman by the M61 motorway in Little Hulton, Salford. He was sentenced to a minimum prison term of 7 years, including a stretch in HMP Frankland: the category A prison in County Durham home to many of the most violent and serious criminals in the UK. Due to Andy's refusal to confess to the crime which he didn't commit, he spent an extra 10 years behind bars. He didn't want to give satisfaction to the 'screws' - a slang term for prison officers. "If I had [confessed],' Andy said, 'I wouldn't really be free anyway. I would have been a self-confessed sex offender and it would have been incredibly difficult to disprove at that point," Andy told Manchester Evening News. "I didn't want to give a false confession because there would be smirks from the screws that they knew it all along," Andy goes on. 'I don't think I would have been able to do it. The words would have just stuck in my throat... I just thought, no, screw them, I'm not going to make a false confession. You can go to hell." Andy was eventually freed in December 2020, but he remained on licence until new DNA evidence led the Court of Appeal to quash his conviction on Wednesday. He recalls being pushed by a prison officer to confess and put himself on a Sexual Offences Treatment Program - the controversial course which actually left sex offenders more likely to re-offend, it was later discovered. The treatment program, which was scrapped in 2017, had offenders admit horri){kind=link}
Andy Malkinson was falsely imprisoned for 17 years and fell into an ‘unspeakable’ depression. If he had followed a prison officer’s advice and confessed to the crime, he could have been out after 7 – but he refused to give in.
A man who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongly found guilty of rape has told of his refusal to give a false confession, which would have seen him released a decade earlier.
Andy Malkinson “collapsed into utter depression” when he was jailed in July 2003, accused of the horrendous strangulation and rape of a young woman by the M61 motorway in Little Hulton, Salford. He was sentenced to a minimum prison term of 7 years, including a stretch in HMP Frankland: the category A prison in County Durham home to many of the most violent and serious criminals in the UK.
Due to Andy’s refusal to confess to the crime which he didn’t commit, he spent an extra 10 years behind bars. He didn’t want to give satisfaction to the âscrews’ – a slang term for prison officers. “If I had [confessed],” Andy said, “I wouldn’t really be free anyway. I would have been a self-confessed sex offender and it would have been incredibly difficult to disprove at that point,” Andy told Manchester Evening News.
“I didn’t want to give a false confession because there would be smirks from the screws that they knew it all along,” Andy goes on. “I don’t think I would have been able to do it. The words would have just stuck in my throat… I just thought, no, screw them, I’m not going to make a false confession. You can go to hell.”