Solicitor Ms Sally Clark was today dramatically freed from life imprisonment for the murders of her two baby sons and spoke emotionally of her love for her family.
After three senior judges at the Court of Appeal in London quashed her murder convictions as "unsafe", Ms Clark, who has a four-year-old son, paid tribute to her lawyer husband Steve.
Emerging from the cells, Ms Clark (38), said: "He has stood by me and supported me throughout this whole nightmare, not through blind love or unthinking loyalty, but because he knows me better than anyone else and knows how much I loved our babies."
The policeman's daughter, who has always protested her innocence, said that her husband together with her little boy - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - "is my life".
Dressed in a smart black sweater and trousers, she added: "Today is not a victory. We are not victorious. There are no winners here. We have all lost out. We simply feel relief that our nightmare is finally at an end."
Clark was jailed for life in November 1999 at Chester Crown Court after being accused of smothering her 11-week-old son Christopher in December 1996 and shaking eight-week-old Harry to death in January 1998 at the luxury home she shared with her husband in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
During the appeal hearing Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice Holland and Mrs Justice Hallett were told that crucial medical evidence relating to Harry, which could have cleared Clark of the murders, was not disclosed to the defence team and only emerged at the end of 2000.
Ms Clare Montgomery QC, for Clark, said that microbiological test results on Harry showed that in all likelihood, he died suddenly in reaction to staphylococcus aureus bacteria.
She said evidence of this infection had been known to the prosecution pathologist Dr Alan Williams, who had carried out post mortem tests on both babies, since February 1998, but it was not disclosed at trial.
Lord Justice Kay, referring to the jury being deprived of that evidence, said: "This resulted from the failure of the pathologist to share with other doctors investigating the cause of death information that a competent pathologist ought to have appreciated needed to be assessed before any conclusion was reached.
"The Court of Appeal on the previous occasion reached their conclusions wholly unaware of this aspect of the matter." He added: "We have no doubt that the resulting convictions are, therefore, unsafe and must be quashed."