TEN years ago, this week, judges quashed the murder conviction of babysitter Suzanne Holdsworth.

The then 37-year-old agreed to marry Lee Spencer, the man who campaigned for her freedom, following an emotional reunion on her release from Low Newton prison, Durham.

Three of the country's senior judges, sitting at London's Court of Appeal, quashed the mother-of-two's conviction for the murder of Hartlepool toddler Kyle Fisher.

She was granted bail having served three years in prison and went on to be cleared following a retrial later that year.

Speaking exclusively to The Northern Echo, she said: "I felt numb when I was released.

"I don't think it has sunk in yet, but I knew I was innocent so I never gave up.

At her Teesside Crown Court trial, Miss Holdsworth was accused of repeatedly banging two-year-old Kyle's head against a wooden banister.

She consistently denied injuring the child and said he had suffered a fit as they watched television.

During her appeal, Miss Holdsworth's QC, Henry Blaxland, told the three judges that the doctors who gave evidence at the trial got it wrong and failed to diagnose that the child had a highly unusual brain, with abnormalities that predisposed him to epilepsy.

Fresh evidence established there was a reasonable possibility that Kyle had suffered a prolonged epileptic seizure, he argued.

Also that week, Gordon Brown was warned that he was leading Labour towards a general election defeat.

MPs across the UK demanded that the then prime minister switch direction to win back voters after the party’s worst local elections since the 1960s.

The Conservatives were celebrating an increase in voters from North Tyneside to Southampton.

William Hague, North Yorkshire's Richmond MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary, even said: "Who, now, is really the party of the North?"

Labour MPs across the North-East urged the prime minister to recognise the party had more troubles than just the “difficult economic circumstances" that could be blamed on a global downturn.

Helen Goodman, Bishop Auckland MP and deputy Commons leader, said: "If you don't get the policies right, it doesn't matter if you have the best presentation in the world. But public opinion is volatile, which means we can bounce back."

Also, that week education officials across the North-East hit out at the government’s decision to release a list of “failing” schools.

Two headteachers demanded a meeting with children’s secretary Ed Balls, whilst parents and teachers feared the schools on the “hit list” could close.

Mr Balls said the government was targeting 638 secondary schools in England, including 22 in the North-East and North Yorkshire, with poor GCSE pass rates.

Stephen Taylor, headteacher of Hall Garth Community College, in Middlesbrough, where only 16 per cent of pupils passed five GCSEs including maths and English last year, said: "This whole thing is a farce. Our student progress for last year was in the top three or four in the North-East.”