Stephen Downing freed

Stephen Downing, jailed 27 years ago for a murder he says he did not commit, leaves Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire after he was freed on bail by the Court of Appeal. Downing, 44, was released from prison to await the hearing of an appeal against his conviction * ...and life jail sentence for the brutal killing of married typist Wendy Sewell. Her badly-beaten body was found in a cemetery where he worked in his home town of Bakewell, Derbyshire. Bail was not opposed by the Crown, which conceded that the appeal was highly likely to succeed in the light of serious questions raised over the admissibility of Downing's confession statements which formed a main plank of the prosecution case. 15/1/02: The long-awaited appeal by Downing, who spent 27 years in prison for a murder he insists he did not commit, was being heard by three judges in London Tuesday January 15 2002. Downing, 45, was just 17 when he was arrested for the brutal murder of typist Wendy Sewell in his home town of Bakewell, Derbyshire, in 1973. Last February, he was released on bail pending appeal and returned to live with his parents, Ray and Juanita, and sister Christine. Today's appeal hearing, before Lord Justice Pill, Mrs Justice Hallett and Mr Justice Davis, was not expected to last more than a day. 15/4/02: The murder investigation was being re-opened, after the murder conviction of Downing was quashed by the Court of Appeal in January. The investigation will be carried out by Derbyshire Police and overseen by an independent advisory commitee. 11/03/03 An independent committee set up to oversee a new police investigation into a murder for which Mr Downing was jailed for 27 years before his conviction was overturned will deliver its findings. Mr Downing, 46, of Bakewell, Derbyshire, had his conviction for the 1973 killing of Wendy Sewell quashed at the Court of Appeal last year, but the new inquiry concluded that he remains the only suspect in the case. A Derbyshire police report published