THE case of the man wrongly jailed for a Hampshire murder should mean a review of how prisoners who maintain their innocence are treated.

That is the view of the man at the head of a service established to help people who have been the victims of miscarriages of justice.

James Banks, director of the Royal Courts of Justice Advice Bureau, believes lessons must be learned from Sean Hodgson’s 27 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit – one of Britain’s worst ever injustices.

On Wednesday, Hodgson, 58, will be formally cleared of raping and murdering Southampton gas board clerk Teresa De Simone, in December 1979.

Despite initially confessing to killing the 22-year-old, he then told Winchester Crown Court jurors he was a “pathological liar” who had made up the whole story.

They did not believe him and in 1982 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

An attempted appeal in 1983 failed, and it was not until he contacted new solicitors last year that his case was reviewed and DNA evidence proved he could not be the killer.

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Many given life sentences are released well before the 27 years Hodgson has served. But he has remained behind bars partly because of his insistence that he was innocent.

Parole boards must take into account a prisoner’s rehabilitation, part of which is accepting what they did was wrong.

“It’s a very difficult situation,”

said Mr Banks.

“It’s only within the last few years we have started to focus on it more intently.

“The parole board has looked at people who maintain their innocence and what should be done about that.”

The advice bureau has a miscarriages of justice team established in 2003 to help those wrongly jailed, providing practical support and advice when they are released.

Its work is groundbreaking, but there is still a lack of help for those inside who insist they have been wrongly convicted, most of whom suffer post-traumatic stress disorder because of their ordeal.

There are some campaign groups which work with prisoners, and an organisation of law students that helps them apply for their cases to be reviewed, but no formal assistance.

“It’s variable what support they do get inside. Some have got close family networks to support them, but others don’t even have that,”

said Mr Banks.

“We certainly haven’t got a perfect system, but some of the developments within this jurisdiction are being looked at elsewhere.

“It still feels like very early days, but there are developments here that lead the way and are being looked at across the world.

“But there’s still a lot of campaigning to do.”