LONDON - A BRITON who spent 27 years behind bars for murder said on Wednesday he was 'ecstatic' to be free after new DNA evidence prompted the appeal court to quash his original conviction.
The prosecution's case was that whoever raped De Simone also killed her, 'so the new DNA evidence has demolished the case for the prosecution.' He said: 'This decision leaves some important unanswered questions. Perhaps the most important is that we do not know who raped and killed the dead girl.
'We can but hope that, for the sake of the appellant and the family of the murdered girl, that her killer may yet be identified and brought to justice.' State prosecutors are not seeking a retrial.
Frail and unsteady on his feet, Sean Hodgson, one of the longest-serving victims of a miscarriage of justice in Britain, emerged from the Royal Courts of Justice holding the hand of his brother Peter, who gave him a big kiss.
'Ecstatic... It's great to be free again,' the 57-year-old said when asked how he felt. His brother added: 'I've had a dream for 27 years. I know it's a hell of a long time. But it's finally come true.'
Wearing a dark suit and a colourful tie, Hodgson, who has longstanding mental and physical health problems, smiled and waved as he stood on the steps of the court in central London.
Hodgson was jailed for life for the murder in 1979 of Teresa De Simone, a gas board clerk and part-time barmaid who was strangled in Southampton on the southern English coast.
At the time of his conviction, DNA tests were not available. 'It is unsafe,' said Igor Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales who headed the panel of three judges.
'The conviction will be quashed for the simple reason that advances in the science of DNA, long after the end of the trial, have proved a fact which, if it had been known at the time would ... have resulted in quite a different investigation and a completely different trial.'
He said swabs taken from De Simone's body had been examined and there were sufficient remnants of sperm on them for proper DNA analysis, resulting in the conclusion that the sample on the swabs did not come from Hodgson.
'Whoever raped her - on these findings, it can't be the appellant,' Mr Judge said. -- AFP
