Criminal Cases Review Commission: Leadership

Since our report was published on 23 May, Dame Vera Baird KC has been appointed as interim chair of the CCRC. I welcome the appointment of such an experienced and respected figure who has the skills and robustness to reform an organisation that has lost its way so fundamentally. I also welcome that, at the Committee’s request, the chair of the CCRC has been added to the list of roles for which the Justice Committee conducts pre-appointment scrutiny.

The cases of Andrew Malkinson, who was imprisoned for almost 20 years for a crime he did not commit, and Peter Sullivan, who spent 38 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, underline the importance of the CCRC’s role. Both Mr Malkinson and Mr Sullivan made applications to the CCRC, which were rejected. The failings in the Malkinson case have been made abundantly clear by Chris Henley KC’s review. Our report does not rehearse the facts of that case; rather, it addresses the way the CCRC conducted itself in response.

I want to highlight two key points in relation to the Henley report: the insufficiency of the CCRC’s apology to Mr Malkinson and the delays in the publication of the report. It should not have taken an independent review for the CCRC to apologise to Andrew Malkinson. The public statements of the then chair, Helen Pitcher, after Andrew 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 that would almost inevitably arise from a failure to admit its mistakes and apologise. By failing to offer a timely apology, the leadership of the CCRC caused significant damage to the organisation’s reputation. The CCRC’s statements gave the impression that the organisation and its leadership were more concerned with defending their own reputation than offering an honest assessment of how they had failed Andrew Malkinson.

The Committee was unpersuaded by the justifications given by Karen Kneller for the delays in the publication of the Henley report. The report was provided to the CCRC in January 2024, but not published until July 2024. Among the reasons for the delay in publication given to us by Ms Kneller on 29 April was that the report was a draft that contained typographical errors that needed correcting. In an exchange of letters with the Committee, Chris Henley KC told us that his report had not contained typographical errors, but that the CCRC had instead asked him to make substantive changes to its wording, and he provided us with evidence of that.

We also found it was inappropriate for the CCRC to suggest to Chris Henley KC that his report should not draw broader conclusions on the CCRC as an organisation based on his analysis of their handling of Andrew Malkinson’s case. The CCRC’s leadership should have accepted the gravity of the failings in the handling of the case and their wider implications. We were further unpersuaded by Karen Kneller and Amanda Pearce’s explanation that publication of the Henley report was not possible because of the proximity of the general election.

When Karen Kneller and Amanda Pearce appeared before us on 29 April, we provided them with an opportunity to respond to public criticisms of the leadership’s recent performance. The answers provided to the Committee did not inspire confidence; on the contrary, the partial nature of their answers led Chris Henley KC and Chris Webb—a crisis communications consultant employed by the CCRC to advise on the Henley report and the response to it—to write to us to correct points made by Karen Kneller on 29 April. Both Chris Henley and Chris Webb made allegations that Ms Kneller had misled the Committee. In the spirit of fairness, the Committee offered Karen Kneller the opportunity to respond directly in writing to those allegations and incorporated her responses into our report.

The allegations made by Chris Henley and Chris Webb served to reinforce the sense that the leadership of the CCRC had continually failed to learn from its mistakes and confront its failings with the seriousness required. As a result of our concerns regarding the performance of the CCRC and the unpersuasive evidence Karen Kneller provided to the Committee, the Committee concluded it was no longer tenable for her to continue as chief executive of the CCRC.

The conclusions the Committee reached were far broader than just those relating to the chief executive and to the organisation as a whole. Commissioners form the body corporate of the organisation and make the key decisions with regard to the CCRC’s work, and we were alarmed that the CCRC had operated without a full quota of commissioners since 2023. We were also disappointed that the terms of commissioner recruitment only require commissioners to work 52 days per year. The responsibility for the lack of commissioner recruitment in recent years is an issue for both the Ministry of Justice and the CCRC. We made recommendations that the incoming interim chair’s review of the organisation should consider whether the terms of appointment for commissioners, the corporate structure of the CCRC and the commission’s relationship with the MOJ are currently appropriate to ensure that the CCRC has the resources it needs to operate effectively. I understand that the terms of reference of that review will be published shortly.

During the pandemic, the CCRC moved to remote-first as a means of operation, which it has retained. That is out of step with the rest of the public sector and seems unsuited to the nature of the commission’s work. We were particularly shocked that both Ms Kneller and Ms Pearce, the senior leadership of the organisation, only attend the office once or twice every few months. We recommended that senior leadership should have a regular presence in the office, particularly in the light of recent events and the high-profile criticism directed at the commission.

Exclusively remote working is not suited to a body that relies on investigation and challenge to correct miscarriages of justice. The CCRC is a hugely important organisation and the senior leadership could have done much more in their evidence to reassure us that they understood the seriousness of the criticisms it has faced, and the need for an overhaul of the organisation to rebuild public trust and provide applicants to the CCRC with the justice they deserve.

For an organisation that is designed to identify failures within the criminal justice system, the CCRC’s leadership has shown a remarkable inability to learn from its own mistakes. The new interim chair, Dame Vera Baird KC, will now conduct a review of the CCRC, and it is already clear from her public statements that she is across the scale and complexity of the task that she has been set, including the issues raised in our report. There is a real prospect of changes being made at CCRC, and I am hopeful that that will lead to better outcomes for those who have been victims of miscarriages of justice.