yeah, that's quite right. last night was my first, well, not even 2a hours since, at this moment, since i've been free. the judge, judge holroyd, said, "you're a free man." so obviously there's been a hell of a lot to process mentally and... but obviously there's a lot ofjoy in the result. it's the result i've waited for for 20 years. but... yeah. obviously, there's a lot ofjoy in the result. it's the result i've waited forfor 20 years but, um... yeah. it's... what's the mix ofjoy and anger? what is the mix ofjoy and anger?

you know, joy at... joy at finally telling the world the truth, and all the obfuscation�*s been stripped away now, but anger at the fact that i was even tried for this, arrested. take us back to that arrest, to the day it happened and the police turned up. what did they say to you? what did you say to them? i was very shocked. i thought, "how am i a suspect? "this is incredible." you know, i'm a very placid... i say so myself, i'm a pacifist. i'm the opposite of violent. i hate violence, and to have someone looking at you and seriously contemplating that you've committed such an act is horrific. and there was no forensic evidence so you said to them, didn't you? "ok, let's have an identity parade." of course. and you must have gone into that parade thinking, "well, this will be the end of it." yeah, if course. i thought, "this is ghastly, this is terrible." "surely the identity parade will fix this." but then was identified by the victim and the world opened up underneath me. and the trial at which these witnesses gave evidence, whose criminal record should have been provided but weren't. yeah. that was so...

i mean, even during the trial, i was looking at these people and they were so... so sure, or they appeared so sure, that they had seen me out that night at a specific time, and i knew fine well i wasn't because it was quite a deprived area. erm, you could sense the criminality. there was shuttered buildings everywhere, and i wasn't planning on staying very long anyway and i thought, "how..." you know, it wasjust like a real bad dream happening in real time. and the dream — the bad dream — got worse. yeah. because then you were sentenced to a long sentence. life, in fact, yeah. and you were in prison. mm—hm. and saying what the prison guards, to other business? what would i say now? no, what did you say? oh, what did i say? i, ijust... i simply maintained my innocence. iwas... i would say, "i didn't do this." this is...you know?

and of course, once you have been convicted, you're processed like meat in an abattoir, and it's like, you're treated like... there's no... there's no halfway measures. nobody believes you. nobody offers any, erm, empathic understanding or anything like that. they just treat you as though you are the lowest of the low. it's it's a mix ofjoy and anger. what is the mix ofjoy and anger? did anyone ever believe you in prison? because, i mean, people obviously say they're innocent in prison, but they give up on it after a bit. you assume you never gave up on it? no, no, no, no. the truth, the truth is that it's the most fundamental thing. and, you know, i've always i've always had an interest in science and mathematics and stuff. and these are fundamental, hard—won truths. and this is an, well, it was an institutional lie set up, but you could have got out well, it was an institutional lie, a set—up. but you could have got out if you just said,

"yeah, ok, i did it." i mean, you could have got out many, many years ago, couldn't you? yes, but it's kind of a hollow choice, because getting out involves taking part in group therapy, they call it. they used to call it the sotp. they've just changed the name now, it's the same thing. sex offender treatment programme. but that involves you discussing with other transgressors, you know, other people, rapists, murderers, paedophiles. you all sit in a group and discuss what you've done. what you've done and sort of pull each other to pieces and sort of discuss together what you've done wrong. were you tempted, though, to do that? to go through that and just... yes. just get it done in order to get out? yes, that's a very good question. i was, of course. i thought through it like a thought a experiment.

but it was even more horrific than spending more time. the idea of lying. i knew i'd been set up and the idea of lying in a group and listening to horrific stories because a lot of the guys that came out of those therapy sessions i saw, they look really burned out by the experience. and these were guilty people, i assume. and so the very idea of sitting there and pretending i've done something as horrific as that, i couldn't even contemplate it after a very short period of thinking. i mean, how? how? imagine just yourself how you've attacked somebody. it's extremely emotive. you know, and the woman is saying, "i've got babies and please don't kill me." and you know very well you haven't done that. you can't, you can't do that. it would just stick in your throat. so you took the decision to maintain your innocence. you carry on year after year. did people outside stick up for you? you had a mum, didn't you? yes.

well, yes, yes. how important was that? very, very important indeed. my my family, my partner, karen. i mean i mean, i had a long relationship with karen in holland, and she knows me intimately. iwe we used to talk incessantly and discuss all kinds of things, deep things, life and everything. she knew me very intimately and she's just like, "it's not possible for him to do that." "he would never do that." are you still in touch with her? yes, yes. which must itself be amazing after all of this. it is. she is the best friend you could ever hope for. best friend in the world. marvellous, marvellous person. did you, when you came to the end of it and you knew to the end of it and you knew... well, your support dog hasjust joined us wonderfully in the studio. we very much welcome them being here. fantastic.

she or he is very welcome to wander around. he, basil. you went through all of this. what has it done to you? i think that's the question that a lot of people will will wonder about, because you you said, i think a few moments ago, i've always had an interest in science and maths, etc.. that constitute you? but what about the other things that make up, that constitute you? what's it done to you as a person? yeah, it's taken an extremely heavy toll on my person, my psyche, my psychology, my being, my soul, if you want to put it like that. and it's been... it's been a heck of a... devastating. experience, and i don't even know now. i can't articulate how i even managed to get through it. i literally...i was in total shock for the first even few years, not few weeks, but years, just trying to get my head around the fact that the world now thinks i'm this person. and i'm not that person.

iwas... well, i contemplated suicide many times. i never told the authorities. they would sometimes ask, but i thought, "well, if i'm going to do that, i'm not going to tell you," because you would be on 2a hour watch and it makes... when you're on 2a hour watch, it makes your life in prison even more unbearable because there's someone opening your flap every few minutes. yeah. did you know how strong you were, when you when you went into prison? when you were... no, no. i'm just an ordinary guy. i'm an everyman. you know, i wasjust picked up and kidnapped by the state. that's exactly how it felt. i was kidnapped by the state, and i slowly, painfully discovered aspects of myself i never knew existed. but it was a terrible, terrible way to learn how to... how to be a survivor, you know? what do you want from the state now? what should the state do?

we were hearing earlierfrom one of your great supporters at the charity appeal, the criminal cases review commission. it behaved badly and, in his view, was incompetence. what do you want to happen now? well, that's my view, too. i mean, the ccrc failed on two previous occasions. since 2009, it's been known that there was an, "unknown male�*s dna" on a crime—specific area. the greater manchester police have wantonly and systematically destroyed that evidence, the clothing that the actual victim wore on that night, which to me is... you can't dress that up as a mistake. that's. .. that's deliberate. do you think that was a deliberate? oh, yeah, no doubt. and you think, just to spell it out, you believe

that they realised that they fitted you up in that original case and that they were covering up for it? is that your allegation? that is more... yes, yes. yes. you can say it's an allegation, but to me it's so clearly obvious. that's what it was. yeah. they... i believe that force is isjust, erm... corrupt. because they have apologized to you, but, plainly, you don't accept that apology. no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. not at all. it's a hollow apology. so those are two organs of the state that have failed you. the issue is of course how you live now, and whether compensation can be got to you quickly. are you expecting to get compensation soon? what have people said to you about that? well, i would in a normal course of events, i mean, i lived in holland for

a long time, which is a libertarian country. and that would be... i, i understand, you know, justjust a natural result of all this. but in england, somehow it's become the norm to fight tooth and nail after you've already fought tooth and nail to clear your name. it's a whole new battle. they don't like paying compensation, and there's resistance every step of the way. so what do you live on at the moment? if i can ask you that? i'm living on benefits. and may ijust also say, justin, and ifeel very strongly about this. somehow the prison service has, i guess, lobbied, lobbied the government in the early 2000s, such that the result is even if you fight tooth and nail and gain compensation, you then have... it's just so kind of sick. you have to pay the prison service, a large chunk of that if you win compensation

for so—called board and lodging, which is so abhorrent to me, i'm sickened by it. there are so many aspects of what you've just told us in the last ten minutes that have been staggering. and nick is as staggered as i am. yeah. well, i think the thing that people listening, as i've just been doing to you, they will be so struck by the quiet, the calm, the dignity with which you're displaying and crudely wondering how you did it, how... well, me too. when you start every day in prison, what was in your mind about how you get to the end of that day knowing you might never get out? yeah, yeah, yeah. it was so... i mean, language isn't sufficient to transport what it was like. was there a technique? was there a way in which days... we talk sometimes to people who've been taken — i know you refer to yourself as having been taken hostage. we've talked to people who have been taken hostage by terrorist groups and they...they

force a routine on themselves. yeah, yeah, very much. it helps. and you live in very much moment to moment in the moment. you know, buddhism helped. there was a very, very kindly buddhist minister there and he helped me. 0nce, once a week, we spent an hour there practising meditation, buddhist doctrines and, you know, the practices, the sutras and and all this, this really helped. what do you want to do now with the rest of your life? yeah, i'm not really sure. it's still sinking in, the gravity of the result yesterday. but i want to begin to heal myself. i'm pretty scarred by it all. i want to live. i actually want to wanted to go back to holland for many years inside. and then brexit happened and and now i'm limited to three months maximum. staying with my, my dear, dearfriend karin in holland. i'd like to go back there as i was living there before this happened. in fact, i was just visiting

england at the time, but i just don't want to live in the uk any more. it feels like an oppressive, oppressive state. live from london. this is bbc news the un warns that half of all young people in europe and central asia are now regularly exposed to severe heatwaves. a top ukrainian general says his forces are struggling to make progress against strong russian defences.

the army in niger declares its support for troops who've carried out a coup against the country's president. hello, welcome to bbc news now, three hours of fast—moving news, interviews and reaction. we start with two new warnings about global climate change. a report by the un's children's agency, unicef says half of all young people in europe and central asia are now regularly exposed to severe heatwaves. it says their health is increasingly at risk from climate change—related extreme weather. meanwhile in the uk, the met office says that the record—breaking heat the country experienced last year — will be the norm by 2060. the state of the uk climate report says extreme temperatures will become more common unless global carbon emissions are reduced. 0ur environment correspondent matt mcgrath reports. last summer's searing heatwaves

sparked wildfires across the uk, with more than 800 on the hottest day injuly, when temperatures