The daughter of a woman wrongly accused of causing the deaths of a mother and her two young children in an arson attack says the miscarriage of justice saw her mother spiral into drug addiction and a mental health decline that caused her death.
In a new BBC Sounds podcast, Wrongly Accused: The Annette Hewins Story, mother-of-one Nicole Jacob discusses the family tragedy that changed the course of her and her siblings’ lives forever – after they were forced into care while their mother was wrongly behind bars.
In October 1995, Diane Jones, 21, and her two daughters, Shauna, two, and Sarah Jane, one, died in an arson attack on Jones’ house on the crime-laden Gurnos housing estate in Merthyr Tydfil in Mid Glamorgan, Wales.
A new BBC Sounds podcast recounts the miscarriage of justice that wrecked the life of Annette Hewins after she was wrongly convicted of causing death by arson in 1997 – before her conviction was overturned two years later
Jacob’s mother Annette Hewins was arrested along with two other women at the time, and two years later was convicted of arson with intent to endanger life at Cardiff Crown Court in June 1997 and given a 13-year sentence.
The original trial heard Hewins, 31 at the time of the murders, had supplied the petrol that had started the deadly fire leading to the triple murder.
Annette’s niece, Donna Clarke, was also handed a 20 year jail sentence. She had been romantically linked to Diane Jones’ boyfriend, Shaun Hibbard, who was the father of her two daughters, which detectives considered a motive for the deadly attack.
A third woman, Denise O’Sullivan was found not guilty of the murders but convicted of perverting the course of justice – and served nearly four years.
Annette, who had been pregnant with her fifth child at the time, served 18 months of her sentence – and spent a total of two-and-a-half years in prison.
She was released by the Court of Appeal in 1999 after it was concluded there was no evidence against her.
The four-star leaded petrol she had bought was not the same used to start the fire, forensics concluded.
Nicole Jacob, the daughter of Annette Hewins presents a new podcast that looks into what happened to her mother – including delving into her happier years, and how being wrongly jailed had devastating consequences on her life
Diane Jones was just 21 when she and her two daughters Shauna, two, and Sarah Jane, 13 months, were killed in the devastating deliberate blaze at her home on the Gurnos estate in Merthyr Tydfil in Mid Glamorgan, Wales
Shauna Jones was just two when she succumbed to the house fire in October 1995
Empty bottles, believed to have been filled with petrol, were found outside Diane Jones’ home following the triple murder in 1995
In the new podcast, Nicole says her mother’s innocent trip to the garage the night before the murders happened led the police directly to their door – and misguided a jury to the first guilty verdict.
Audio footage reveals her speaking to the press, surrounded by friends and family, upon her release at the Royal Courts of Justice, and during her time in prison.
Annette urged the police to ‘find the real killers’ and she’s heard saying on the tapes: ‘They took my baby away from me. They wouldn’t do to a dog what they did to me.’
Her niece Clarke’s sentence was also later quashed, after judges deemed the original verdict ‘unsafe’.
Annette’s niece, Donna Clarke, was also convicted – with judges handing her a 20 year jail term. Her conviction was later quashed after it was deemed ‘unsafe’
The podcast also details the hours before how Annette tragically died in February 2017, at the age of 51, after a long battle with heroin addiction and mental health problems, which left her experiencing hallucinations and paranoia.
She been sectioned at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant and in her final moments was heard still trying to prove her innocence, and saying her baby had been taken from her.
An inquest later concluded that she died of heart failure and there were ‘matters of concern’ about her care, including failure to perform an ECG test.
Annette’s daughter says the conviction haunted her mother until the end of her life, and even beyond her death.
She recalls how a nurse in the hospital following her mother’s death told her: ‘Your mum just couldn’t live with herself, could she?’
Hewins (centre) pictured after leaving the Court of Appeal in London in 1999 with friends and family; she gave birth to her youngest son while in prison
Annette had never taken hard drugs before her time in prison, but the mother-of-five descended into heroin addiction after her wrongful conviction
Detailing her troubled childhood, Nicole says she had been just four when her mother was arrested, saying Annette had felt judged by the wider community in Merthyr Tydfil and feared revenge attacks on her family.
Annette’s descent into heroin began in prison, she says, explaining that her mother had never done ‘hard drugs’ before she was locked away.
The first episode of the podcast also sees Nicole visit her father, who now lives in an assisted living home after an accident 20 years ago.
He reflects on happier times for the family, including their wedding and early years of marriage before their divorce, saying Annette would spoil her children ‘rotten’.
Nicole describes the impact on her and her siblings’ childhoods – who all ended up in the care system – because of the miscarriage of justice, saying ‘that whole world collapsed for all of us after her arrest’.
Annette’s daughter says that she lived for a ‘happy ending’, saying: ‘when she died, it was the ultimate blow, it really hit home this dream that I’d had since childhood was not going to happen now.
‘It’s bittersweet thinking about those years and what we did have because it never really came back.’
Wrongly Accused: The Annette Hewins Story is available now on BBC Sounds
