Wendy Sewell, a 32-year-old legal secretary from Bakewell, Peak District in Derbyshire was found beaten, sexually assaulted and murdered.

Following a campaign by a local newspaper led by Don Hale, in which Sewell was purported to be promiscuous, Downing's conviction was overturned in 2002.

The case is thought to be the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, and attracted international media attention.

Don Hale's book was subsequently criticised for falsehoods and inaccuracies, and police considered bringing charges against him for its contents.

When the law of double jeopardy was changed in England and Wales in 2005, allowing individuals who had previously been acquitted of a crime to be re-tried in certain circumstances, Derbyshire Police applied to the Crown Prosecution Service to re-charge Downing.

Officers questioning Downing shook him and pulled his hair to prevent him from going to sleep,[1] and allegedly took bets on who would get him to confess.

[5] Downing's trial took place between 13 and 15 February 1974 at the Crown Court at Nottingham before Mr Justice Nield and a jury.

[9] A forensic scientist Norman Lee, gave evidence that the blood found on the accused could only have been present if he had been responsible for the assault.

[4] A witness was found who said she saw Downing leaving the cemetery, and at that time she also saw Wendy Sewell alive and unharmed.

The witness, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, was unable to give an adequate reason for why she came forward with her original evidence.

[6] Stephen Downing continued to deny committing the murder so his family attempted to get support for another retrial, saying "we just want him home".

[5] The Crown also agreed with the defence argument that more recent knowledge of blood-splattering patterns meant the prosecution's claim that the blood could only have been found on the clothes of the attacker was questionable.

"[6] Following the Court of Appeal overturning Stephen Downing's conviction, the Derbyshire Police reinvestigated the murder under the name Operation Noble.

One of the alternative suspects was Downing's father, who had been driving the bus that dropped Sewell near her workplace on the morning she was assaulted.

[4][16] The police had wanted to question Downing about three confessions he made to the murder since his release from prison, including one recorded on audio tape, but he refused to comply.

[5] Although he had refused to be interviewed for the reinvestigation, Downing issued a formal complaint after the findings were announced, saying: "They said that they would do a thorough investigation into the matter - they have not done".

[19] After failing to link any other person with the murder, and unable to eliminate Downing as the suspect, the police declared the case closed and said they were not looking for anyone else.

[20] The man who wrote the report, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Wood, commented: "There are a number of anomalies contained within Mr Hale's documentation, and within Town Without Pity, that, taken in isolation, have the potential to detract the reader from the facts surrounding the case".

[20] The report further added: "A number of witnesses to whom Mr Hale attributed personal comment have told officers they have never spoken to him.

[20] The report highlighted that speculation in the book that Sewell was meeting an illicit boyfriend at the time of her death was incorrect, and said that it was wrong of Hale to draw significance to Sewell's "missing bag" and claims that her personal effects were never found, since they had actually been returned to her husband shortly after the murder and never went missing.

[22] His arrest came four days before the screening of the BBC dramatisation of the case titled "In Denial of Murder", which concluded that Downing may have in fact committed the crime.

[23] In 2005, the law on double jeopardy was changed so as to allow those who had previously been acquitted of murder to be re-tried if new and compelling evidence was found.

[25] In January 2014, Chris Clark, a former detective investigating 16 unsolved murders and possible links to the 'Yorkshire Ripper', obtained a pathology report which he claimed was buried by the police in 1973 within a few days of the attack on Wendy Sewell.

He said it would have completely contradicted the so-called confession, exonerated Downing and prevented a miscarriage of justice, because he said that it revealed that she had bruising on her neck and so must have been strangled.

[10] Stephen Downing worked for the local council as a gardener in the Bakewell cemetery where Wendy Sewell was murdered.

[30][31] Downing's release was reported by the BBC as being hailed as "a triumph for campaigning journalism... and an end to one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history."