Speeches by Munt.

“What kind of turnover of staff do you have?”

“Thank you. Can I just bring you to the matter of DNA evidence and what kind of training is given to staff on that? Evidently, in 2009 there was DNA evidence that was not properly understood and opportunities to get fuller DNA results that were missed. The CCRC’s response to Chris Henley’s recommendations said that a fo…”

“I am concerned only because there are other cases, aren’t there, like Nealon, with broadly the same sorts of things? I recognise that that was an old case and before Malkinson, but isn’t there a pattern of trying to see whether it fits into a box and saying, “The Court of Appeal would agree with this”? From what you ar…”

“If you send that to the Chair, that would be fine.”

“The other thing that I would quite like you to do is to dig out the instruction that you had not to publish during the period of the general election and send that to the Chair as well. That would be helpful.”

“Thank you, and those that you have not progressed already as well.”

“Probably the best thing that I can ask you to do is to communicate with the Chair after this. If you could write to the Chair explaining exactly those things, that would be very helpful. That would be good because it would make it clear.”

“Okay, thank you. So, you have said that you are learning from everything that happened. I just wondered how you might summarise that learning and whether you might express any regrets that you might have on the way that the CCRC handled the response to Andrew Malkinson’s acquittal and the publication of the Henley repo…”

“Did you have any concerns yourself about having a conflict of interest in that you had been, as I understand it, responsible in some way for managing the casework at a critical time in the Malkinson case, yet you were also employing the comms specialist to deal with how the organisation—”

“And what stopped that?”

“That sounds like the end of his job. You are just saying that he got to the end and it was all fine, and off he went, as opposed to—”

“And why did he resign?”

“And did the CCRC attempt to edit the review report to water it down in any way?”

“Did he tell you that he had serious concerns about the CCRC’s response to the Henley review?”

“What was the purpose of bringing in the crisis communications consultant in November 2023? That was Chris Webb, was it not?”

“That is what the annual report says.”

“So you don’t feel that there is any impact on any other.”

“Yes, I do, I do, I do. I wondered why the CCRC’s response to the Henley report and the annual report of 2023-24 says that Henley’s findings are “necessarily limited to the Andrew Malkinson case”, because to me the evidence suggests otherwise.”

“Fine.”

“You have said that, and everyone will understand that. Most of the work that solicitors and barristers do is unseen and the judge’s deliberations are unseen. It is the poor person who has not been served properly who needs to see this stuff sorted out, and sorted out fairly. It is not even as though this is the only ti…”