BLIND Yvonne Sleightholme - the woman convicted of shooting dead her "love rival" in a North Yorkshire farmyard - has finally been freed from jail.

Her release just before Christmas comes after she spent more than 16 years inside - despite her trial judge recommending she serve only ten years and despite exemplary behaviour throughout her sentence.

Delighted supporters claimed today the long delays were undoubtedly caused by her consistent refusal to admit to murdering Jayne Smith in a muddy farmyard at Broats Farm, Salton, near Malton, on the night of December 13, 1988.

Campaigner David Hamilton said her denials had meant she could not attend certain courses, and yet without attending the courses it was much more difficult for the authorities to agree to her release.

"It was a catch 22 situation," he said. Certain experts such as psychiatrists had also raised doubts about the safety of releasing prisoners who had not admitted to their guilt.

He said the Parole Board had finally been persuaded this autumn that it was safe for Sleightholme, now 53, to be released on licence.

"Since her transfer last year from Askham Grange Prison, near York, to Drake Hall Prison in Staffordshire, it became clear to the authorities that she did not pose a threat to anyone," he claimed.

He said she was driven back to an address in North Yorkshire, which he declined to disclose, to spend Christmas with members of her family, although regrettably, her father, Bob, died only four months before her release.

"Yvonne did not take the opportunity she was given to attend his funeral, for fear that it might turn into a "peep show", and she did not want to distract everyone's attention from her father," he said.

Asked how Sleightholme had reacted to her release, he said: "It's a mixture of relief and excitement, with an element of disbelief and unreality."

He said she had developed a form of traumatic blindness shortly after being arrested for the murder and had since been completely unable to see, apart from slight awareness of light and darkness in one eye.

He said he and fellow campaigner Margaret Leonard were delighted she had finally been released, and would now resume their 13-year battle to establish her innocence.

"A large and growing body of evidence has been assembled effectively pointing to her innocence," he claimed. "We intend to go back to the Criminal Cases Review Commission next year to ask it to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal."

William Smith, the widower of Jayne Smith, said he was aware Sleightholme was free, but did not wish to comment further.

Brutal slaying

Mike Laycock looks back to the night Jayne Smith was shot dead in a remote farmyard - and the campaign to prove Yvonne Sleightholme was wrongly convicted of the murder

It was a brutal killing in a desolate setting. Jayne Smith, the wife of farmer William Smith, was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head in their muddy farmyard at Broats Farm, Salton, near Malton, on a dark night in December 1988.

Yvonne Sleightholme was arrested soon afterwards, but before she could be brought to trial she went blind - a condition referred to in those days as hysterical blindness. At her trial, the jury was told she was an ex-lover of Jayne's new husband William, and had lain in wait in the farmyard to shoot Jayne. The motive was said to be jealousy.

Sleightholme, a doctor's receptionist from Seamer, near Scarborough, claimed she had been lured to the farm on the night of the murder, but the jury did not believe her claims. She was jailed for life, with the judge imposing a ten-year tariff.

Mr Justice Waite said after her fiance had broken off their engagement and later married another woman, she had "wrought upon the newly-married couple a terrible revenge," and later tried to escape justice by telling a "wickedly untruthful story."

Some years later, two Londoners with no connections to anyone involved in the case, David Hamilton and Margaret Leonard, began investigating it and became convinced Sleightholme was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice.

In 2000, they opened up their extensive files to public scrutiny for the first time in an exclusive interview with the Evening Press. They claimed to have unearthed important pieces of evidence never presented to the jury at her trial in 1991, which they believe would have helped prove her innocence.

For example, they claimed a bloody handprint found on the parcel shelf of a car at the murder scene was too large to have been caused by her, as had been alleged by the prosecution. They claimed the jury was not invited to compare the print with Sleightholme's hands, instead being shown a postcard-sized print.

But the following year, her hopes of taking her case back to the Court of Appeal were dashed when judges threw out an application for leave to apply for a judicial review of a Criminal Cases Review Commission refusal to refer her case to the Court of Appeal. But campaigners said: "This is not the end of the road."

In January 2002, Sleightholme gave her first media interview to the Evening Press from Styal Prison in Cheshire. She said she would never admit to killing Jayne Smith - even though this might mean she would never be freed.

"I value the truth more than anything," she claimed.

"I didn't do it, and nothing - not even the chance of freedom - will make me lie and say I did it... I was not responsible for that terrible murder."

In March 2003, the Evening Press revealed how a Parole Board blunder had kept Sleightholme locked up. Documents obtained by the paper revealed that the board's justification for refusing her a transfer to an open prison last autumn - that despite exemplary behaviour inside she posed too great a risk of violence - was based on inaccurate information.

The then editor, Liz Page, wrote to the board, asking for it to look again at the application and Ryedale MP John Greenway passed the documents on to a Government Minister.

The following month, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett referred the case back to the board for a fresh review. Following this, Sleightholme was transferred to an open prison, Askham Grange near York, taking her a step closer to the freedom that has finally come this Christmas.

Updated: 08:24 Tuesday, December 27, 2005