The wife of convicted murderer Michael Steele today vowed that the fight to have her husband freed from prison and to clear his name would continue.

Jackie Steele said every avenue was being investigated in a bid to get him released - including an application to the European Court of Human Rights.

Steele, 56, who lived in St Mary's Road, Great Bentley, and Jack Whomes, 36, of Main Road, Brockford, Suffolk, both got triple life sentences for the murders of drug barons Pat Tate, Craig Rolfe and Tony Tucker at Rettendon, near Chelmsford, in December 1995.

But Mrs Steele claimed they were innocent.

"We are looking at every possible channel," she said. "They did not commit these murders and both Michael Steele and Jack Whomes protest their innocence. Michael is determined and absoutely resolute the truth will eventually come out and he will never give up."

Mrs Steele, who still lives in the Tendring area but does not want to reveal exactly where, has come forward to speak for the first time since the trial.

She is concerned that a new film Essex Boys, which is being shot across Essex and loosely based on the Rettendon murders, will do nothing to help her husband's case.

"The film and the fact that Michael and Jack's names are being connected with it just further concretes the view they are guilty," she said.

Mrs Steele said they were also angry the BBC programme Inside Story - which she claimed included important new evidence - was prevented from being screened earlier this year.

Steele and Whomes have been refused leave to appeal but Steele has put a case against his own legal representation before the Legal Ombudsman.

"If it is found he was not properly represented then he will have leave to appeal," added Mrs Steele. The ombudsman has to go through the entire trial and we should know his decision in about four months."

She said an application was also being made to the criminal cases review committee, the European Courts and private prosecutions against certain police officers.

The Channel 4 programme Trial and Error is also looking into the case.

Mrs Steele said she believes her husband is innocent. She said she was shopping with him on the evening of the murders and then they returned home to Great Bentley to show a couple round the house they were selling.

"I know that he is no saint - but I also know that he did not murder these three men," she added.

"He has commited a number of crimes in the past and he has paid for them. The evidence is there that he is innocent but we just need someone to listen."

Steele first went to prison in 1964 and is serving his sixth sentence. In 1990 he was sentenced to nine years for importing drugs but was released in 1993 on police licence.

Mrs Steele said it had been a difficult and frustrating time for her since her husband was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years last January.

"I have had everything taken away from me. I have no means of support and I am living on benefits," she said.

"My main aim in life is to get Michael home and I will never give up trying."

Mrs Steele said she is only able to visit her husband about once a month because he is in prison in York but she speaks to him daily on the telephone.

Mrs Steele said in order to be freed at any stage, Steele would have to admit his guilt. But she added: "He will never do that - he would rather die in prison than admit to something that he did not do."

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