"When I spoke to Sue Woodward this morning, I reassured her that everyone in the community, everyone across Britain and around the world, is giving their full support to the family. I said I wouldn't leave a single stone unturned until we got justice in this case."
Those were the words of just one of Louise Woodward's supporters yesterday as friends and family of the British au pair tried to come to terms with the guilty verdict. As Woodward's lawyers decided yesterday to appeal against the conviction, her parents, Gary and Sue Woodward, appeared on British television last night and claimed vital evidence had been withheld from the jury.
In their first interview since their daughter was sentenced yesterday, Louise Woodward's parents described how they were left "completely numb" by the verdict.
Promising that she would fight for her daughter's release, Mrs Woodward said on ITV that she had told Louise "that we love her, that we believe in her".
She continued: "I won't stop fighting for her while I've got a breath left in my body. For she's an innocent, an innocent child. And they've made a horrendous mistake and they need to put it right."
She claimed the prosecution case was fundamentally flawed and "certain things were unfair". "I thought it was unfair that the lie detector test results were not let in," she said.
The Woodwards also claimed that the prosecution had produced 18 photographs during the trial which should not have been admissible as evidence. Mrs Woodward said the photographs were vital evidence in the case.
"The defence had no chance to look at those. And they were kept for eight months and so they withheld evidence, destroyed evidence, and yet the trial was still allowed to go ahead. I lost faith at that point," she said.
Earlier, the British Foreign Office confirmed that Louise Woodward could be transferred to a British prison to serve her sentence but only after all legal options had been exhausted in the US.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said last night that she could apply for a transfer because Britain and the US had signed a convention on the transfer of prisoners. However, Woodward must "exhaust fully the judicial options before the transfer could happen and this is up to and including an appeal", the spokesman said.
He added that it was possible that she would serve part of her life sentence in the US before a possible transfer "but that is very much a matter for the US authorities. We are not sure how much of her sentence she would have to serve before being eligible for a transfer." At the village where the Woodwards live in Cheshire, friends and family last night vowed to continue the campaign for the teenager's release. One campaigner said donations to an appeal fund were "coming in thick and fast".
Sky Television said that more than 100,000 had responded to a phone-in poll, 93 per cent of the callers condemning the verdict.