Sean Hodgson was interviewed about life after wrongful imprisonment in an article published by the BBC. “A man who spent 27 years in jail for a murder he did not commit has accused the police of lying and forcing a confession out of him.” Sean Hodgson expresses his anger with police and tells how after a wrongful conviction, the authorities did not help him re-adjust to society. A society that had changed dramatically since he left it as a free man, 27 years ago.
In 1979 the body of Miss De Simone was found in the back seat of her Ford Escort in a car park beneath the Tom Tackle pub where she worked part-time as a barmaid. She also worked full-time for Southern Gas.
Sean Hodgson made various confessions to the murder, but his defence said he was a pathological liar and the confessions were untrue. More than a quarter of a century after his conviction, a forensic review discovered that DNA found at the scene was not his.
At the time of the trial such evidence was not available, and it subsequently revealed that the suspected murderer was David Lace, who killed himself in December 1988 when he was aged 26 and living in Brixham, Devon.
Mr Hodgson is one of the longest serving victims of a miscarriage of justice in UK legal history.