A man who evaded justice for nearly two decades has been jailed for 21 years for a “savage” rape for which Andrew Malkinson was wrongly imprisoned.

Paul Quinn, 52, was found guilty of the 2003 attack in Salford after a fresh forensic analysis found traces of his DNA on the victim’s clothing.

Quinn followed the woman for about a mile before dragging her into a secluded woodland where he strangled her unconscious then raped her twice.

The victim, now in her late 50s, sat at the back of the courtroom and wiped away tears as her attacker was sentenced.

The judge, Mr Justice Bright, said it was a “minor miracle” that the woman survived. He described her as “truly a hero,” saying labels such as victim, complainant and survivor did not do her justice.

Sentencing Quinn to a maximum of 21 years in prison, Bright said he would serve at least 14 years in custody before he is eligible for parole.

Malkinson spent 17 years in jail for a crime he did not commit before being released in December 2020.

In a statement read to the court, the woman said the ordeal “has stayed with me and will remain with me for life”.

“Every day I look at my face and see the disfigurement, the scarring. It is a permanent reminder of that night and what I experienced. I have to live with that,” she said.

The woman, who cannot be identified, said that 23 years after the attack she lives with “permanent anxiety” and “in constant fear that someone is behind me, even in places that others wouldn’t consider a risk, like the supermarket”.

She added: “For him, it was one night of his life. For me it was one night that changed my life.”

Quinn, a father of six, was not investigated at the time of the rape despite being a convicted sex offender who lived near the scene.

Instead, detectives focused on Malkinson, who was jailed in 2004 and spent 17 years in prison protesting his innocence.

His conviction was quashed in 2023, becoming one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in modern British history.

Quinn is being investigated as a potential suspect in other serious sexual assaults, including three rapes. The case is now being examined by a judge-led inquiry and by the police watchdog.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating five former Greater Manchester police officers on suspicion of gross misconduct, including one who is under criminal investigation. A sixth officer, still serving in the force, is being investigated on suspicion of misconduct.

The IOPC is examining Greater Manchester police’s destruction of evidence in the Malkinson case, its failure to disclose the criminal histories of two key witnesses in the 2004 trial, and whether those witnesses were offered incentives to testify against the innocent man.

Sentencing Quinn, Bright said the attacker had “abducted” the woman from a safe place and attacked her in “the most grave” way.

The woman, who had been walking home from her boyfriend’s house in the early hours of the morning, was strangled until she passed out before being raped and punched with such force that her cheekbone was fractured. Her nipple was partially severed from a bite.

Bright said the woman was “very lucky she did not die and luckier still that she did not incur significant brain damage”, adding: “It’s a minor miracle that she didn’t die.”

Police and prosecutors knew as long ago as 2007 that an unidentified man’s DNA was found on the victim but decided not to carry out further tests at the time.

Quinn’s DNA was eventually identified on samples of her clothing in October 2022 after a fresh forensic review.

Quinn, who lived in the Little Hulton area of Salford before divorcing his wife and moving to Exeter in 2017, was convicted of twice raping a 12-year-old girl in 1990 and 1991, when he was 16.

Four years earlier, when he was 12, he received a criminal caution for the indecent assault of a woman.

He also had historic convictions for burglary, actual bodily harm, possessing an air gun, and arson with intent after setting fire to a wheelie bin outside the home of an ex-girlfriend while she was inside with her children.

It emerged during the trial that he had repeatedly searched online for details about the Malkinson case, including before it was widely known as a miscarriage of justice.