Sean Hodgson, wrongfully jailed for 1979 murder, dies
A man who was paid £1m by the government after he was wrongfully jailed for 27 years for a murder he did not commit, dies three years after being released from prison.
Sean Hodgson, 59, was recently admitted to hospital suffering from emphysema. He became the second longest serving prisoner to have his conviction overturned by the court of appeal, and Hampshire Police later confirmed that DNA tests identified the real murderer of a part-time barmaid in Southampton in December 1979.
Channel 4 News understands the Home Office paid out close to £1m in compensation and legal costs to Mr Hodgson.
His lawyer Julian Young said: “He was something of a forlorn character. Prison totally institutionalised him and left him unable to cope and all because he made false confessions to a murder of an innocent young woman at a time when forensic science hadn’t even begun to experiment with DNA technology.”
Mr Young added Hodgson’s case exposed the crucial need to preserve evidence from the past, and the state’s responsibility for unravelling miscarriages of justice.
Sentenced to life
Mr Hodgson was sentenced to life in 1982 for the murder of 22-year old Teresa de Simone. The partially-clothed body of the part-time barmaid was found in the back of her Ford Escort parked behind the Tom Tackle pub where she worked.
She’d been raped then strangled with her gold crucifix necklace. Mr Hodgson denied murder but was convicted on the basis of a number of false confessions and blood type matches with samples found at the scene.
His defence team at the time argued that he had mental health problems and was a pathological liar. Mr Hodgson always contested his innocence but it took 27 years before DNA science proved it could not have been him.
Real killer
Hampshire Police later announced that tests on the exhumed remains of David Lace, who confessed to the crime in 1983, and took his own life in 1988, showed he was the real killer.
At the court of appeal, it emerged lawyers acting for Mr Hodgson asked for new DNA tests back in 1998 but were wrongly informed the exhibits had been destroyed.
An investigation into the error failed to find the source.