Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent, at Manchester Crown Court

We’re now in court for the start of the sentencing of Paul Quinn for the 2003 strangulation, grievous bodily harm (GBH) and rape of a woman in Salford - a crime that he kept secret for two decades while the wrong man was in jail.

Quinn is in the dock, wearing a black jumper and staring straight ahead - as he often did during his trial. In the court room is the victim with her family.

She has a legal right to lifelong anonymity, but chose not to be behind screens during the case - meaning Quinn could see her as she gave her evidence.

Seven of the jurors who convicted Quinn have returned to court to see him sentenced.

The public gallery is full - there are reporters, police officers and others to witness this important moment of justice.

Mr Justice Bright will hear first from the prosecution about what the crime amounts to.

We've just had word that the judge is in the courtroom and Paul Quinn is in the dock.

That means the hearing has now begun at Manchester Crown Court ahead of Quinn's sentencing, which is expected later this afternoon.

We'll hear submissions from the prosecution and defence first, before we hear Mr Justice Bright's decision on Quinn's sentence.

Dominic Casciani
Home and legal correspondent, at Manchester Crown Court

A sentencing of any offender is a very formal and structured court hearing.

Judges follow both the laws agreed by MPs in Parliament on the sentences for particular crimes - and then the detailed guidelines developed down the decades about how best to apply those in specific circumstances.

Mr Justice Bright presided over the case and therefore knows all of the evidence. He saw the victim of the attack give her account in person and saw for himself how Quinn denied that he could be the attacker.

The prosecution team will tell the judge what category of offending the crime falls into - and the defence barristers will speak on Quinn’s behalf about factors in his favour. The one thing he will not get is a discount on the sentence which is always given to offenders who admit their crimes early, so as to spare everyone the pain of a trial.

The judge will have to decide how much harm Quinn caused and how personally responsible, or “culpable” he was. Those findings then lead him to what’s called a “starting point” for years in prison.

The judge will then take into account other aggravating and mitigating factors. All of this will lead the judge to his final decision - the sentence.

Image source, PA Media

Andrew Malkinson spent 17 years in prison after he was wrongly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004 for the rape. His conviction was only overturned in 2023 in light of compelling DNA evidence identifying Quinn as the true attacker.

At the time of the attack, Malkinson had been living temporarily in the area of the attack in Salford because of a short-term job. Police saw him as a prime suspect because he had been stopped by two officers some time earlier.

He was wrongly picked out at as the attacker in an identity parade, and in 2004, a jury convicted Malkinson solely on the basis of eyewitness accounts.

From the day of his arrest, he protested his innocence. From around 2007, England's criminal justice agencies should have started to realise he was telling the truth - read why here.

New evidence revealed that when the victim first saw Malkinson in court, after he had been charged, she had doubts she had picked out the right man. A police officer dismissed this as "just trial nerves". It's not clear who this officer was - she cannot remember.

Malkinson told the BBC's Shadow World: Stolen Years podcast last month that he had been "very badly cheated" and that he was thankful police had "finally got the real perpetrator".

Image source, Greater Manchester Police

The 52-year-old formerly lived in Little Hulton, Salford, where he committed the crime. He is a divorced father of six, who left the city in 2016 following a drugs dispute.

He then moved to Exeter, Devon, where he worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in December 2022.

When questioned by police, he said that, for about 16 years from the age of 18, he had a party lifestyle and would take ecstasy pills and other drugs and sleep with two or three women each weekend.

At his trial, the court heard that Quinn was a convicted sex offender at the time of the attack. He was cautioned in 1986 for two counts of indecent assault against a female, when he was 12 years old.

In November 1992, he was convicted of two counts of underage sex, an offence which today would be classified as rape. He was aged 16 and the girl was 12 at the time of the offences.

In April of this year, Quinn was also found guilty of strangulation and grievous bodily harm.

Paul Quinn will be sentenced today for a violent rape he committed in 2003, more than two decades after an innocent man was wrongly jailed for 17 years for the crime.

Andrew Malkinson was wrongly convicted after being misidentified in an identity parade, leading to what has been characterised as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

Advances in DNA testing ultimately helped identify Quinn as the real perpetrator. Malkinson was released in 2020 and finally exonerated in 2023.

We'll bring you updates here from Manchester Crown Court throughout the sentencing.