[9] In a statement issued at the time, Detective Superintendent John Porter said: "It is 99% certain that the girl was murdered, attacked, chatted to or met by her killer in a matter of seconds after Jenni Savage left her.

"[9] The pathologist determined, based on the presence of "white frothy mucous" in the victim's mouth,[Appeal 5] that the cause of death was a "long, slow strangulation".

[Appeal 5] A number of vaginal, anal, oral and control swabs were taken by the pathologist, and subsequent forensic examination demonstrated that the semen was produced by a male with the blood type "A" or "AB".

[17] The victim's leather handbag and personal belongings, including a diary, were found in multiple locations within the vicinity of the crime scene,[Appeal 6] although her car keys, Rotary wristwatch, two necklaces, three rings and a bracelet have never been recovered.

"[9] Despite De Simone's possessions being taken, police did not believe that robbery had been the motive; they were convinced that this was a red herring and that she was the victim of a "vicious rape by a brutal and merciless killer".

[10] Nine months after the murder, while Hodgson was already in custody for an unrelated offence,[Appeal 7] two anonymous telephone calls were made to the police in which the caller confessed to killing De Simone.

[Appeal 7] On 11 December 1980, Hodgson asked to see a priest, Father Frank Moran,[14] to whom he confessed that he was having nightmares and the face of a woman he had killed "kept coming back to him".

[Appeal 11] He repeated the confession to a prison officer the following day,[Appeal 12] and subsequently wrote a note which stated: "After much deliberation and thought and confession with the priest here in Wandsworth, after all the trouble I have caused, not only to you, the police, but myself, the mental torture I have gone through, the family of the person concerned, I must for my own sanity and the punishment I will receive for this horrible crime, I wish now that it was me that was dead and not the person I killed at the Tom Tackle pub.

[Appeal 13] Over the next two weeks, Hodgson gave more confessions and was also escorted to Southampton where he showed the investigating officers where he had disposed of some of De Simone's property.

Thirdly, every time I have been nicked by the police, which is on many occasions, I have made false confessions to crimes I have not committed, and this is the reason why I am not going into the box.Hodgson was tried for the murder of Teresa De Simone at Winchester Crown Court in 1982.

For the defence, Robin Grey QC, explained to the jury that such was the extent of Hodgson's compulsive lying that he had confessed to 200 different crimes, including murders that had not happened.

[17] Hodgson continued to maintain his innocence; convicted murderers sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment in the United Kingdom have their cases reviewed by the Parole Board before the end of the minimum fixed term, averaging 14 years.

[23] In March 2008, Hodgson responded to an advertisement in Inside Time, a monthly newspaper for prisoners, placed by Mayfair-based solicitors Julian Young and Co. who specialised in appeals against conviction.

[24][25] The solicitors took on Hodgson's case, and Rag Chand spent four months attempting to track down the swab samples which the FSS claimed had been destroyed at least 10 years previously.

[17][25] As the police claimed that there were no surviving papers in the case, and the senior investigating officers had since died, Chand relied largely upon newspaper cuttings to piece together what had happened.

In December 2008 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) notified Julian Young of the initial results of the DNA analysis, and on 30 January 2009 it was confirmed that the semen detected on the vaginal and the anal swabs could not have originated from Hodgson.

"[Appeal 24] Accompanied by his brother Peter, Hodgson walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice a free and innocent man after 27 years of wrongful imprisonment.

[25] In December 2010 Hodgson was returned to prison awaiting trial over new and unconnected allegations of rape and sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman with learning difficulties at a care home in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in August 2010.

Hodgson's solicitor, Julian Young, said: "The wrongful imprisonment for 27 years of my client has had a devastating effect on his life since he was cleared of the murder he did not commit [and he] has been gripped by a number of personal difficulties, including a degree of alcohol abuse."

"[21] On 11 August 2009 McTavish released a statement that a prime suspect had been identified, adding, "While work is ongoing to maximise DNA evidence, the inquiry team is confident they are on the right track and hopefully could be close to solving this 30-year-old murder".

[35] At first the police refused to release the identity of the new prime suspect, except to reveal that he had committed suicide in 1988, and had confessed to De Simone's murder while in custody for an unrelated crime in 1983, 18 months after Hodgson's conviction.

Hampshire Constabulary said the breakthrough in the case was only possible because of advances in forensic science and tests on the body would take six weeks, after which a file on the dead suspect could then be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service.

"[4] The Crown Prosecutor for Hampshire & Isle of Wight stated "the evidence would have been sufficient to prosecute David Lace, if he were alive, with the offences of the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone.

[41] Because he had wrongly described significant evidence (including the car and De Simone's clothes[42]), police had dismissed his statement, filing it along with six other confessions to the crime.

In September 2009 a team of six British Transport Police officers with specialist training in forensic search techniques spent two days examining the area in an attempt to recover the jewellery.

[43][44] Although the ground had been the subject of extensive redevelopment in previous years and recovery of the items was considered unlikely, detectives authorised the operation to ensure every attempt had been made to find and return them to her parents.

DCI McTavish said of the search: "It is recognised that in the years since Teresa's murder there has been a lot of disturbance and redevelopment around the railway track, but there was still a possibility that items may have lain undisturbed.

[45] The head of Southampton CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Shirley Dinnell, stated that the referral was voluntarily made by Hampshire Constabulary because of the miscarriage of justice that had taken place and to ensure transparency of inquiries.

[47] "Most people released after miscarriages of justice end up as recluses, their marriages fail, they aren't talking to their children, they become drug addicts and alcoholics, they die premature deaths.

[48] Neil Durkin of Amnesty International commented in a piece for The Daily Telegraph: "[W]e had the deeply sad case of Sean Hodgson, the man from Hampshire who ended up being behind bars for 27 years, not least because the prosecution service suppressed exculpatory DNA evidence that could have set him free a decade earlier.