his last online posting had been concerned with being released from prison in spite of his denials. The murder of Linda Cook was committed in Portsmouth on 9 December 1986. The subsequent trial led to a miscarriage of justice when Michael Shirley, an 18-year-old Royal Navy sailor, was wrongly convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. After serving the minimum 15 years, Shirley would have been released from prison had he confessed the killing to the parole board, but he refused to do so and said: "I would have died in prison rather than admit something I didn't do. I was prepared to stay in forever if necessary to prove my innocence." Shirley's conviction was eventually quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2003, on the basis of exculpatory DNA evidence. The Stephen Downing case involved the conviction and imprisonment in 1974 of a 17-year-old council worker, Stephen Downing, for the murder of a 32-year-old legal secretary, Wendy Sewell. His conviction was overturned in 2002 after Downing had served 27 years in prison. The case is thought to be the longest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, and it attracted worldwide media attention. The case was featured in the 2004 BBC drama In Denial of Murder. Downing claimed that had he falsely confessed he would have been released over a decade earlier. Because he did not admit to the crime, he was classified as "IDOM" (In Denial of Murder) and ineligible for parole under English Law. In the United States In the United States the reality of a person being innocent, called "actual innocence", is not sufficient reason for the justice system to release a prisoner. Once a verdict has been made, it is rare for a court to reconsider evidence of innocence that could have been presented at the time of the original trial. Decisions by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles regarding its treatment of prisoners who may be actually innocent have been criticized by the international community. Herbert Murray, who was convicted of murder in 1979, said, "When the judge asked me did I have anything to say, I couldn't say, because tears were coming down and I couldn’t communicate. I couldn't turn around and tell the family that they got the wrong man." The judge said he believed the defense's alibi witnesses; however, the judge was required by law to respect the