The appeal court cleared a man on Wednesday who has spent 27 years behind bars for murder, in one of Britain’s longest cases of wrongful imprisonment.
In 1982, before DNA testing became available, Sean Hodgson (57) was found guilty of killing 22-year-old part-time barmaid Teresa De Simone.
He had denied the charge in court and has always insisted on his innocence.
His laywer presented DNA evidence to the appeal court that Hodgson could not have been the murderer, the Press Association reported.
De Simone had been found in 1979 strangled in her Ford Escort in a car park below the Southampton pub where she worked part-time.
Hodgson, who had been in the area at the time, was convicted on the basis of a confession he later retracted and a match of blood types.
His lawyer Julian Young had said the DNA evidence showed Hodgson was not the killer.
”The DNA on all three relevant exhibits is of the same person, and that same person is definitely not Sean Hodgson,” he told BBC radio.
Hodgson, originally from County Durham, had said he had confessed because he was a pathological liar. He has since suffered from mental illness.
Young said Hodgson’s mental health had improved recently with the hope his case would be resolved.
Hodgson had served such a long time behind bars because he had continued to insist on his innocence, effectively ruling out parole, Young said.
The Crown Prosecution Service did not oppose the appeal. — Reuters