A man cleared of a murder after 33 years says he will use his new found freedom to visit relatives in America.

Oliver Campbell, who lived in Stratford, served 11 years after being convicted in 1991 of murdering Hackney shopkeeper Baldev Hoondle.

He has been on licence conditions ever since, in addition to being on record as a convicted murderer, meaning his freedoms have been restricted despite being out of prison.

But Court of Appeal judges today (September 11) quashed his conviction and ordered that he will not have to face a retrial.

Speaking to this paper around half an hour after the judgment was published, Mr Campbell called it “the best thing that’s ever happened.”

“I’m trying to sink it all in because of all the mistakes that happened with different authorities,” he said.

Mr Campbell, who suffered severe brain damage as a baby, was never linked to the crime by any forensic evidence and did not match witnesses’ descriptions of the shooter.

But after repeated police interrogations, during which officers spoke to him angrily and rudely, sometimes without a lawyer, and lied about having forensic evidence proving him guilty, he made a series of confessions.

The Court of Appeal heard his case over three days earlier this year, where expert witnesses testified that Mr Campbell’s mental impairment meant he was at high risk of falsely confessing.

Judges said it was now questionable whether his confessions would even be admitted as evidence and said that if they were, “a jury knowing of the fresh evidence would be considering the reliability of those confessions in a materially different context.”

Asked what he would do to celebrate, Mr Campbell said supporters had arranged a party in Ipswich, where he now lives, tonight - but before that, there were lots of journalists who wanted to talk to him.

“I’ve got quite a lot of interviews to go through and try not to swear – but I don’t give a monkey’s,” he said. “It’s absolutely disgusting, what’s happened.”

After today, he said, he would travel to London to meet loved ones and discuss the news with them.

Then, he said, he would “try to sort out a visa where I can go out to America to see my relatives I haven’t seen.”