Criminal cases review boss resigns after miscarriages of justice

Times

02-07-2025

The boss of the beleaguered miscarriages of justice watchdog has resigned just weeks after acknowledging that she was in the office only 'one or two days every couple of months'.
Karen Kneller, the chief executive of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, became the first high-profile scalp after Dame Vera Baird KC was appointed to chair the organisation last month.
Baird, a former Labour solicitor-general, had publicly stated that she was unhappy with the commission's wider failings — most notably around the handling of the case of Andrew Malkinson, whose conviction was quashed in 2023 after he served 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. Thousands of cases are being reviewed in the wake of the bungled handling of that case.
But Baird was also understood to be concerned with working practices at the commission after Kneller told MPs on the justice committee in April that senior managers and other staff worked almost exclusively remotely.
In a statement on Wednesday, the commission said that Kneller, a barrister who joined the watchdog in 2005 and was promoted to chief executive eight years later, had resigned from her £125,000 role.
Amanda Pearce, the CCRC casework director, has been appointed interim chief executive. Pearce had also acknowledged to MPs that she worked predominantly remotely.
The statement added that the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, had asked Baird to review the organisation. The chairwoman said: 'The CCRC has a vital role to play in the criminal justice system, but confidence in the organisation has been badly damaged. Confidence in our work must be restored.'
Kneller had also faced criticism for the organisation's handling of the Malkinson case.
In a report looking at the processes, Chris Henley KC criticised the organisation for deciding in 2012, eight years after Malkinson's conviction, that fresh DNA evidence did not meet the legal test for referring his case for appeal.
Referring to that report, Kneller told MPs on the committee that 'without doubt we got that case wrong' and that Malkinson had been 'failed' by her organisation.
At the time, she told MPs: 'Everyone in the organisation deeply regrets what happened. I can't begin to think of the impact this has had on him. The double impact of being a victim of a miscarriage of justice and then the way we handled his case.'
Matt Foot, the co-director of the campaign group, Appeal, which supported Malkinson, said a 'long-overdue resignation is a necessary first step in tackling the obstructive culture at the CCRC, which has stood in the way of justice for far too long'.
Foot added that 'ultimately, a completely fresh senior leadership team — with a track record of challenging injustice — is required for the CCRC to become effective.'
Kneller's resignation will potentially pose further questions over the viability of the commission as it came six months after the previous chairwoman, Helen Pitcher, quit before she was widely expected to be sacked by the justice secretary.
When she resigned in January, Pitcher told The Times that she had been unfairly ousted from the commission over the Malkinson scandal, and said that 'a head had to roll and I was chosen for that role'.
She questioned why she was the 'only target' given that Malkinson's case involved egregious failings by other bodies, including police who withheld evidence.
Pitcher, 66, said: 'I was made a scapegoat for decisions largely made before I got involved in this organisation. In the inquiries that followed, I was not given the chance to properly defend myself. I shudder to think why anyone would want to go into public life on that basis.'