Forensics: Catching the Killer TV - Mail online article - BBC online -
[Louise Shorter]: ‘Teresa de Simone was a 22-year-old young woman who worked for the gas board; lived at home with mum and dad.’ Forensics: Catching the Killer s4e7: The Body in the Car, Sky Crime 2024
Southampton, 5th December 1979: Body discovered behind the Tom Tackle pub. ibid.
Hampshire police interviewed 30,000 people and took 2,500 statements. ibid.
The early confessions didn’t lead anywhere but eventually one did materialise that seemed much more credible [Sean Hodgson]. ibid.
‘He [Hodgson] routinely confessed to crimes.’ ibid. Shorter
‘Within three hours they came back and found him [Hodgson] guilty.’ ibid.
1998: Sean Hodgson became to seek help from legal professionals. ibid.
Semen swabs had been taken from Teresa de Simone’s body in 1979. ibid.
‘On 18th March 2009 Sean Hodgson walked out of the Court of Appeal a free man.’ ibid. writer
It turned out that David Lace had confessed to the murder, but that had been discounted during the investigation … a year after Sean Hodgson had been found guilty.
David Lace took his own life on 8th December 1988, 9 years after Teresa had been killed. ibid.
A mentally-ill man who spent 27 years in jail for a murder he did not commit has been finally freed.
As 57-year-old Sean Hodgson declared himself ecstatic at the quashing of his conviction, it emerged that he could have been released ten years ago had it not been for further mistakes, this time by the Forensic Science Service.
Mr Hodgson was jailed after confessing to the 1979 murder of 22-year-old barmaid Teresa de Simone in Southampton. At the trial he was said by his own defence to be a pathological liar ...
But Dawn Burrows, one of his legal team, said it was likely the FSS will be sued to try to obtain more.
She added: ‘There is an issue about how culpable are the FSS. They could have done something about this ten years ago.’
The revelations about the forensic blunders came on a day of high drama.
Gaunt and frail, Mr Hodgson appeared overcome he walked to freedom through the court's front doors. Mail online article 19th March 2009
A man wrongfully jailed for 27 years for a murder he did not commit has died three years after being released from prison.
Sean Hodgson, 61, of County Durham, was jailed for the 1979 murder of Teresa De Simone, 22, in Southampton.
His conviction was quashed in 2009 after advances in DNA testing showed he was innocent and another man, now dead, was the likely killer.
Mr Hodgson was one of the UK’s longest serving miscarriage of justice victims. BBC online article 27th October 2012