Rape accused's wife 'joked about his missing shirt'

The ex-wife of a man accused of a rape which led to a wrongful conviction of another man has told a court that a shirt belonging to her husband had gone missing on the night of the attack. Catherine Quinn told Manchester Crown Court that Paul Quinn had gone out dancing wearing a white shirt with mid-blue stripes, but it never went in the wash. The victim of the 2003 Salford attack had told police the man who assaulted her had been wearing a white shirt with a stripe. Mrs Quinn said the attack had been in the news at the time and she had joked to Quinn - who denies all the charges - that the shirt had better not be found near the crime scene. Andrew Malkinson was arrested within weeks of the incident and later convicted, spending 17 years in jail on the basis of mistaken eyewitness evidence. This new trial alleges that Quinn's DNA evidence links him to the attack. Earlier in the trial, the jury had heard the victim's description of the attacker, who had snatched her from behind in the street as she was walking home in Little Hulton just before dawn on 19 July. She was strangled unconscious and has no memory of the rape. She told police that the man had been wearing a white shirt wit