Freed over mobile phone photographs

a MURDER conviction was quashed yesterday after photographic evidence was found on the convicted man’s mobile phone.

Sam Hallam, 24, heard three judges at the Court of Appeal declare his 2005 conviction for murder “unsafe”.

Mr Hallam, of Hoxton, east London, spent more than seven years in jail for the murder of trainee chef Essayas Kassahun, 21, who died after being attacked on the St Luke’s estate in Clerkenwell, London, on 11 October, 2004.

He lost an appeal in 2007, but he and mother Wendy with dozens of supporters were in a London court yesterday to hear Lady Justice Hallett, with Mr Justice Openshaw and Mr Justice Spencer, overturn his conviction, after his case was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.