"ECSTATIC!"

That's how Ian Lawless summed up his feelings as he walked free from court – and from prison – after having his murder conviction quashed.

Mr Lawless, 47, of Morpeth Walk, Grimsby, was today beginning life as a free man after spending eight years behind bars for a murder he did not commit.

Locked up in February 2002 after being convicted of the killing of Grimsby pensioner Alfred Wilkins, he has always protested his innocence.

Ian Lawless walks free from the London Court Of Appeal.

His conviction was based on alleged confessions he made to friends and acquaintances, a taxi driver and a fellow prison inmate in the run-up to his trial.

But yesterday, after hearing fresh psychological evidence which has come to light since the trial, three top judges at the Court of Appeal said his conviction could not stand and ordered that he be freed.

Lawless responded to the decision with a wink and a blown kiss.

As he emerged to freedom, supported by members of his family and his legal team, he said he felt "ecstatic", but also "strange" being out of prison after so long.

Standing outside the court with his daughter Laura Jayne, he said: "I should never have been in there."

Mr Wilkins, a 67-year-old retired sea captain wrongly suspected of being a paedophile, died from the effects of smoke inhalation after arsonists poured accelerant through his letter box and set his house on the then Yarborough estate ablaze in February 2001.

His Alsatian, Lucky, also died.

Ian Lawless celebrates his freedom after being released by the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal heard the original case against Mr Lawless was based on allegations that he told numerous people, many of them connected with his favourite pub, the Pestle and Mortar, that he had acted as a look-out on the night of the killing.

But many of his alleged confidantes described him as a heavy-drinking attention-seeker who often made up stories, including lying about his involvement in local crimes.

One described him as the "village idiot", who liked attention, and said he did not make much of Mr Lawless' claim that he had "killed the paedophile".

And even his own daughter said he was "a bit of a drunk" who sometimes talked nonsense when he was under the influence of drink.

With no forensic evidence linking him to the killing, the issue before the jury at the trial was simply whether the confessions were examples of his attention-seeking or genuine admissions of guilt.

He was ultimately convicted by a majority of 10 to two after a long jury retirement.

A series of reports by a Kings College London professor of forensic psychiatry had cast serious doubt on the safety of the jury's verdict, Lord Justice Richards told the court.

The reports described him as a known alcoholic, an "emotionally unstable extrovert" with serious longstanding psychological problems.

He had a "pathological need for attention", which made him vulnerable to uttering inappropriate and unfounded comments to gain that attention.

A clinical psychologist for the Crown had backed much of the findings in the report, leading prosecution lawyers to opt not to oppose Mr Lawless' bid for freedom, he said.

"We are satisfied that, if the jury had heard that evidence at trial, it might have affected their assessment of the reliability of the various confessions made by the appellant and their verdict might have been different," he continued.

"It follows that this appeal must be allowed and the conviction quashed."

Another Grimsby man, Gary Lawson, 20, was convicted unanimously of murdering Mr Wilkins at Hull in 2002 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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