Rape suspect 'made frequent online searches of case'

A jury has been told that a man accused of a raping a woman - for which another man wrongly served 17 years in jail - made frequent internet searches about the attack.

Paul Quinn denies raping the woman in Little Hulton in Salford in 2003. Manchester Crown Court has heard that Andrew Malkinson was jailed for the attack in 2004 but released after 17 years and that his conviction was quashed in 2023.

At Malkinson's 2004 trial there was no DNA evidence but advances made since then ruled out Malkinson's DNA being present on the woman or her clothing.

The jury has heard that DNA found on the woman matched Quinn's.

Jurors have also been told that Quinn said in a police interview that he was very promiscuous when he lived in the Salford area at the time and slept with thousands of women.

John Price KC, prosecuting, told the jury about the campaign Malkinson mounted to prove his innocence, and about how that campaign generated more and more publicity over the years.

Price also said Quinn made internet searches about the case three years before he knew there was a DNA profile that linked him to the case.

Price said: "His [Quinn's] research was undertaken by him before ever he was told about the DNA which had been found and which matched with his profile.

"If what [he] said in the [police] interview on December 13 2022 is true and he is not the person who attacked [the woman] then prior to the day of the interview, he would have had no earthly reason to believe that he should ever be suspected of committing a crime, which after all, by then, had occurred so very many years ago."

He added: "The data recovered from [Quinn's] Gmail account shows he was someone who had little interest in what might be called news outlet websites.

"He very rarely visited them. But there was one news story which did catch his eye. It was the Andrew Malkinson campaign, and Paul Quinn was onto it before it became prominent in 2020," he told jurors.

Price also told the jury that Quinn's internet searches changed dramatically once there were media reports in 2022 that DNA linked another man to the crime.

"The available evidence shows a very profound change in [Quinn's] internet-browsing habits not long after information [about the DNA] was published," Price told the court.

"A man now living in Exeter, in Devon, he searched the website of Manchester Evening News, including its front page, on 249 occasions between 16th August 2022 and 13th December 2022."

The prosecution told the court Quinn also made internet searches about how long DNA samples are kept on the police database.

The jury has been told that Quinn provided a DNA sample in 2012, so he knew it was stored in the national data base when he made searches about DNA in 2022.

Jurors were later read a series of statements made by the victim of the attack. For legal reasons she cannot be identified.

In her first statement, made nine days afterwards, she described how she walked towards her home from her boyfriend's house in Atherton in the early hours of 19 July 2003.

She said she became aware of a man in a white shirt, which was fully unbuttoned and flapping open, following her.

"Every time I looked over my shoulder he seemed to be closer. I was very frightened at this time," she said.

The woman went on to describe how the man attacked her.

"I heard five or six running steps and felt an almighty force behind me like a push," she said.

She described how she and the man slid down the motorway embankment where the attack took place, and how he put his thumbs on her throat several times.

Her statement continued: "I was in such shock. I said to him 'what are you doing?' My mind went blank. I did not know what to say to him. Everything was happening too fast.

"I started to panic. I could not breathe. I was flailing my arms about in panic. I thought he was trying to kill me."

She said she passed out and realised she had been raped when she woke up, the court was told.

In statements from later years, the woman told police she did not know anyone called Paul Quinn and did not recognise any photos of him, jurors heard.

Quinn denies rape, strangulation and inflicting grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent.

The trial continues.

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