AN innocent man who spent 27 years in jail for murder has today been freed by the Court of Appeal.

AN innocent man who spent 27 years in jail for murder has today been freed by the Court of Appeal.

Sean Hodgson, now 57, was present in the dock to hear the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and two other senior judges in London, rule that his 1982 conviction should be quashed as it was “unsafe.”

His case was reviewed in the light of new DNA evidence, which showed that he could not have been the murderer.

Mr Hodgson was sentenced to life for the 1979 murder of 22-year-old gas board clerk and part-time barmaid Teresa De Simone, who was found strangled in Southampton.