Andrew Malkinson: Prison staff did not like me studying

ANDREW MALKINSON has revealed that he faced “resistance” from prison staff over studying for a degree at the Open University.

Mr Malkinson, who served 17 years for a rape he did not commit, made the comments while guest-editing BBC Radio 4’s programme yesterday.

He said: “People won’t want to hear this but the [prison] staff didn’t really like us doing higher education.

“There was resistance and made all kinds of problems over small matters that weren’t really important. I felt they were putting obstacles in the way so there was a lot of frustration, but I was determined to get through it.”

Mr Malkinson, 57, was jailed in 2004 for an attack on a woman in Salford, serving almost two decades in prison before his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in July.

He kept busy by studying for an Open University degree in maths and science. “I’m a nerd,” he previously told

His wrongful imprisonment is now the subject of an inquiry that will investigate why he remained in jail when

DNA linking another man to the rape was uncovered by forensic scientists three years into his sentence.

Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, said Mr Malkinson deserved “thorough and honest answers” over why it took so long to uncover the “atrocious miscarriage of justice”.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, told the Today programme that he “wasn’t surprised” to hear prison staff were resistant to inmates studying for higher education. “It was depressing to hear it,” he said. “You got a sense from that brilliant interview from Andrew that he got such an enormous amount out of doing that degree. He said it was one of the things that kept him sane while he was doing this long sentence.”

The Prison Officers’ Association was contacted for comment.

Andrew Malkinson said he felt prison staff were ‘putting obstacles in the way’ when he studied for a degree at the Open University