ONE of Britain’s longest running injustices was today set to be righted with the man wrongly jailed for killing a Hampshire woman finally tasting freedom after 27 years behind bars.

Sean Hodgson’s conviction for the murder of Teresa De Simone was expected to be quashed at the Court of Appeal, after DNA evidence proved he was not the killer.

Following the hearing, Hampshire police are expected to reopen the investigation into who did kill t h e 22-year-old gas board accounts clerk in Southampton in December 1979.

They have already revealed that they are looking at the new DNA evidence that has been key to Hodgson’s release almost three decades after he was convicted by a Winchester Crown Court jury.

As reported in yesterday’s Daily Echo, his solicitor Julian Young said a “frail and gaunt ”

Hodgson, 58, wanted to apologise to Miss De Simone’s family for the pain his lies have caused.

After one final briefing before today’s hearing, Mr Young said his client was looking forward to winning his freedom.

“He is obviously very excited by the prospect of coming out, but daunted by the fact that he’ll be shortly on his own, albeit with support, and having to face the outside world for the first time in about 30 years,” he said.

Hodgson, whose real name is Robert, yesterday finally left Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight after serving 15 years of his jail term there.

He was moved to Brixton Prison for his last night behind bars, before heading to London’s Royal Courts of Justice early this morning.

There, in the Court of Appeal’s courtroom number four, three judges – headed by the Lord Chief Justice – wereexpected to rule on an application for his conviction to be declared unsafe.

With the Crown Prosecution Service not contesting the application, the judges were expected to rubber-stamp his appeal and bring to an end one of the longest-ever miscarriages of justice Britain has ever seen.

Hodgson was jailed in 1982 after confessing to killing Teresa, whose body was found in her Ford Escort car behind the Tom Tackle pub. She had been raped and strangled with her own crucifix.

While in Wandsworth Prison for car theft, Hodgson told a priest he was haunted by the image of her face and could no longer live with the guilt.

He repeated his confession to detectives, but then changed his story and pleaded not guilty in court, telling jurors he was a “pathological liar”.