The subsequent trial led to a miscarriage of justice when Michael Shirley, an 18-year-old Royal Navy sailor, was wrongly convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment.

[3] His conviction was eventually quashed in 2003 by the Court of Appeal after the DNA profile extracted from semen samples recovered from the victim's body was proven not to be his.

[5][6][7] Because of the brutal nature of the murder and the preceding sex attacks, Hampshire police were under public pressure to quickly make an arrest.

[2][8] Shirley's later exoneration of the murder after serving 16 years of his sentence is significant as it is the first time that a UK court quashed a previous conviction on the basis of presentation of new DNA evidence.

[Appeal 2][13] Her assailant raped and strangled her, stamping upon her several times and with such force that her jaw and spine were fractured, her larynx crushed, and imprints of his right athletic shoe were retained on her abdomen.

[Appeal 2] A number of vaginal, anal, and vulval swabs were taken by the pathologist, and subsequent forensic examination confirmed the presence of semen, from which the blood type of the killer was determined.

"[Appeal 9] Michael Shirley was an 18-year-old able seaman in the Royal Navy, serving aboard HMS Apollo, which was docked in Portsmouth at the time of the murder.

[15] At trial, the prosecution submitted that it was at this time that "he saw Miss Cook who was walking along Merry Row... and in his frustrated and angry state he attacked her, raped her and murdered her before going back to HMS Apollo.

On 5 January 1987, before the ship left the UK, he made another visit to "Joanna's" where Fogg – initially discovered as a witness during house-to-house inquiries – identified him to a police detective as the man she had been with on the night of the murder.

Shirley maintained his innocence throughout the trial, and as the case was based only on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of Deena Fogg, he and his legal team doubted that it would result in conviction.

[8] The jury believed the prosecution case, however, and on 28 January 1988 he was found guilty of the rape and murder of Linda Cook and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Frustrated that fresh evidence uncovered by a journalist was being ignored, Shirley also staged a rooftop protest – of which he later said "Those couple of days on the roof were my only nights out in 16 years.

Shirley's solicitor, Pal Sanghera, said he was "disturbed that the same force that had carried out the initial investigation and a further inquiry last summer was being given the task.

[8][19] Speaking in June 2002, James Plaskitt, the then MP for Warwick and Leamington, said: "This long delay has imposed an intolerable strain on Michael and his family...