The Criminal Cases Review Commission has launched a case studies hub to help ‘inform potential applicants’ about the organisation’s work, test and processes.

Case studies will be published in the hub fortnightly. Each article will link to individual case studies from the CCRC’s case library, which launched last September and lists all referrals the CCRC has made since 1997, when it started its work. Current articles cover unreliable confession cases, asylum and immigration investigations and referrals of imprisonment for public protection sentences.

A CCRC spokesperson said: ‘These thematic case studies will help people understand more fully the range of the work carried out by our team, and the basis on which our many hundreds of referrals have been made. We hope this will assist potential applicants and support our work in finding and investigating possible miscarriages of justice.’

More than 860 cases have been referred back to the courts by the CCRC. More than 840 have been heard. Of those, the appeal was successful in more than two thirds of them, according to the independent body.

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One of the CCRC’s referrals was last week heard in the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of former traders Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. Though the CoA refused permission to appeal, it certified that their decision involved a point of law of general public importance. 

The body made headlines last year over its handling of Andrew Malkinson’s case. Malkinson spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. CCRC Helen Pitcher resigned following a review which found the organisation had failed Malkinson.