A new police inquiry has been launched into the seemingly motiveless shooting of a couple at their south Wales farmhouse back in 1993.

Harry and Megan Tooze suffered catastrophic injuries when they were shot at point blank range with a twelve bore shotgun. Their bodies were then wrapped in carpets and hidden in a cowshed at their smallholding in Llanharry, outside Cardiff.

Johnathan Jones - the boyfriend of the Tooze's daughter Cheryl - was wrongly convicted and jailed for life in 1995.

Cheryl Tooze, now married to Mr Jones, mounted a campaign to prove his innocence and after spending two and a half years in jail, the 40-year-old's conviction was quashed.

On Thursday, South Wales Police announced that a new team of detectives have been brought in and fresh lines of inquiry have been identified after an independent review of the original inquiry by a lay panel.

As well as pin-pointing specific areas of concern in the initial Tooze murder inquiry, the panel also recommends several changes to the way in which the force investigates murders

Despite the time lapse of eight years, Assistant Chief Constable Tony Rogers said: "I believe this case is still solvable and we would appeal for anyone with information to come forward.

"As this is now a live investigation and so as not to jeopardise any active lines of inquiry I can not make any further comment."

The initial murder inquiry had been the subject of a review by an Independent Advisory Group - a controversial approach but one being considered by a growing number of forces.

Comprising of members of the public from a variety of backgrounds, the group's aim is to scrutinise the inquiry and make recommendations.

It is the third time South Wales Police chose to involve civilians in such a way - the first case being the unsolved murder of Cardiff prostitute Lynette White in 1988. In its report, the panel made recommendations specific to the Tooze inquiry as well as general changes to the way in which the force investigates murders.

"The review report contains recommendations that are separated into two areas, Mr Rogers explained. "The first deals with the procedures and practices around homicide investigations generally. The second area of recommendations deals specifically with potential inquiries into Harry and Megan's murder. As a result Chief Constable Tony Burden has instructed that the recommended lines of inquiry be pursued by a newly formed team of investigators."

Meanwhile Mr Tooze - who has since set up home with Cheryl in Caerphilly where they have begun a family - is still pursuing complaints against the police. He is calling for a public inquiry into the conduct of South Wales Police, and has dismissed the panels as "window dressing".

A man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend's parents was freed yesterday after three Appeal Court judges ruled his conviction was unsafe.

Jonathan Jones, 37, a market researcher, walked straight into the arms of Cheryl Tooze, 36, his girlfriend of 13 years who has campaigned tirelessly to prove his innocence.

As the couple, both near to tears, embraced on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, she said: "It is a victory for love and truth."

Mr Jones, who was jailed a year ago for the murder of Harry Tooze, 64 and his wife Megan, 67, hugged her and said: "I had never given up hope. I am delighted to have been cleared, but it has taken an awful long time. My life in prison has been horrendous. I've had support from my family, from Cheryl - particularly from Cheryl. That has kept me going."

The judgement was announced by Lord Justice Rose, sitting with Mr Justice Dyson and Mr Justice Gage, who said: "We are all of the clear view that these convictions are unsafe for reasons which we shall give on a further occasion. Accordingly the convictions will be quashed and the defendant will be discharged."

As the ruling was announced Miss Tooze rushed up the stairs to the dock of Court Seven, where her boyfriend stood, and embraced him through the bars. His father, Graham, 60, stood shocked at the back of the court. He said: "I've never felt so washed out in my life. I don't know where I am at the moment."

As Mr Jones was led to the cells for his formal release, Miss Tooze, who has offered a £25,000 reward from her £150,000 inheritance for information leading to the "real killer(s)", dashed from the court to telephone her father's sister, Olive Hampton, 73.

"He has been released. He has been released," she shouted down the telephone.

Turning to journalists inside the court she added: "I am absolutely delighted. It has been a long fight and my fight is not over. I have got Jonathan released. My intention is to carry on and find out who killed my parents. My reward of £25,000 still stands and will continue to do so."

The appeal was won on the fourth day after John Rees QC, representing Mr Jones, had argued the original conviction was based on "suspicion, speculation and conjecture". Mr Jones was arrested 18 weeks after the bodies of the couple were found at their smallholding in Llanharry, mid-Glamorgan in July 1993. Both had been shot in the back of the head.

He was convicted by a 10-2 majority after the jury heard that a single thumbprint of his had been found on a saucer at the couple's house.

Miss Tooze refused to accept he was guilty and gave up her hopes of starting her own market research business to devote her life to campaigning for his release.

Her dedication split the Tooze family, and caused a rift which resulted in neither side talking except through intermediaries.

With the exception of her aunt Olive, her father's four brothers and five sisters all believed Mr Jones to be guilty.

And she was appalled when her father's family implied she had been blinded by love for Mr Jones, and would believe anything he told her.

She moved into the Caerphilly home of her boyfriend's parents, Graham and Pauline, and began a high-profile media campaign to draw attention to his case.

Yesterday Mr Jones's mother Pauline, 57, said: "We are just elated that Jonathan's cases has been listened to at last." She learned of her son's release in an excited phone call from her husband.

"He only had time to shout 'he's free' before they dashed off. The relief is only just beginning to sink in".

As she left to celebrate with Mr Jones, Miss Tooze said: "We have fought for this for a very long time. My confidence in Jonathan has never, ever faltered otherwise I would never have fought for him. I think the legal system has an awful lot to answer for. I will be addressing these issues at a later stage and I would like to help others who have been a victim of miscarriages of justice".

THE case against Jonathan Jones appeared to rest on a single thumbprint found on a saucer in the television room at the smallholding where Harry and Megan Tooze were killed.

It was part of their best blue china set. And, claimed the prosecution in the original trial, it supported the theory that Mr Jones, a man the couple had come to love as a son-in-law, had drunk tea with them before killing them both.

He was arrested 18 weeks after the murders. The motive, said the prosecution, was that he was in financial straits.

It was claimed that he planned to murder the couple so that his girlfriend, Cheryl, their only child, would inherit £150,000. Then he planned to marry her.

Mr Tooze, a retired fruit wholesaler in ailing health, and his wife were each shot once in the back of the head with a shotgun at their six-acre smallholding Ty-ar-y-Waun - the house in the meadow - in Llanharry, Mid Glamorgan.

Mr Tooze was shot inside a cowshed then dragged to a trough and covered with tarpaulin sheets.

Mrs Tooze was shot as she ran from the house when she heard the noise. Her body was dragged to the cowshed and covered with a heavy carpet.

The killings were described as "cold-blooded executions". Both shots were fired from only three feet away.

Mr Jones, whose relationship with Miss Tooze began 13 years ago when they met at the Polytechnic of Wales in Treforest, was said to have returned after the killings to the home they shared in Orpington, Kent.

During his 55-day trial at Newport Crown Court in 1994 the prosecution alleged that he was in debt. Yet the couple earned £25,000 a year between them and Miss Tooze had £6,000 in the bank.

The thumbprint, the prosecution claimed, suggested that Mr Jones had drunk tea with the couple. The appeal hearing heard that it could be explained because Mr Jones had been allowed to enter the farmhouse unsupervised by police after the killings.

There was a suggestion that Mr Jones could have been linked to a burglary at the farm 10 months earlier in which a 12-bore shotgun was stolen. But there was no evidence of this.

The Court of Appeal also heard that no blood or tissue had been found on Mr Jones's clothing, or his spectacles.

"They found nothing. The killer would have been liberally spattered with blood and brain tissue. He would have been dishevelled from carrying tarpaulin sheets and from moving bodies," John Rees, QC, told the court.

He added that even the most thorough cleaning could not have removed such matter from the minute crevices of his glasses.

Mr Jones's alibi that he had been searching for offices for Miss Tooze on the day and had been seen by a lift attendant had never been disproved. And, while a man in a trenchcoat had been seen at Pontyclun railway station on the day, three prosecution witnesses testified that it was not Mr Jones.

He was jailed for life after being convicted on a 10-2 majority. After the verdict, Mr Justice Rougier told barristers in a note: "I am bound to record that the verdict caused me some surprise."

Mr Rees told the appeal hearing that, by the end of the trial, the prosecution had not established a motive for the crime and there was evidence that Jones's relationship with Mr and Mrs Tooze was a good one - he was treated like a member of the family.

Mr Rees said: "Is it likely he would have killed them? Is it likely he would have killed them in the way they were killed - a cold-blooded execution?"

Jonathan Jones, the businessman jailed for murdering his girlfriend's parents, was freed by the Court of Appeal yesterday after three judges took five minutes to decide that the convictions were unsafe.

Cheryl Tooze, his partner of 15 years who fought a dedicated campaign to prove his innocence, ran to the dock and kissed him through the iron bars as the decision was announced. She said she would fight on to find whoever did shoot Harry and Megan Tooze at their farmhouse in Llanharry, Mid Glamorgan, in July 1993.

Mr Jones, 36, who had sat pale and gaunt throughout the four-day hearing, closed his eyes and slumped in his seat as Lord Justice Rose said: "This court is of the clear view that these convictions are unsafe for reasons which we shall give on a future occasion. Accordingly, the convictions will be quashed and the defendant will be discharged."

Outside the court, Mr Jones said that he was furious about an announcement by South Wales police that they would not be launching a fresh investigation into the murders, adding: "We will be pressing for a continuation of these investigations by a competent authority."

Miss Tooze, who now hopes to start a family and may even go back to live at the farmhouse which is now being rented out, said that the judge's ruling was a victory for love and truth.

"My confidence in Jonathan never faltered. I'm absolutely delighted. It has been a long fight but my fight is not over yet. I have got Jonathan released. My intention is to carry on and find out who killed my parents. I think the legal system has an awful lot to answer for".

Miss Tooze said that her reward of £25,000 for information leading to the conviction of the killers still stood.

Mr Jones, who was planning a champagne celebration with Miss Tooze and his father, said that his 17 months in prison had been horrendous and that he felt overwhelming relief.

Mr Tooze, 64, a retired fruit farmer, and his wife, 67, were each shot in the back of the head at their ten-acre smallholding in what was described as a "planned and pitiless execution". Their bodies were hidden in a cowshed and covered with hay bales.

The Crown had claimed that Mr Jones had travelled to the farm and had tea with the couple before shooting them, then drove back to Orpington, Kent, where he shared a flat with Miss Tooze.

But a thorough search of Mr Jones, his clothes and belongings found not a single speck of blood ­ even though Mr Tooze was said to have suffered such extensive head injuries that the killer would have been "liberally splattered". No witnesses had seen him at the farm that day ­ he said he was in Orpington 200 miles away ­ and the prosecution conceded that they could not establish a financial motive for the killing.

The single piece of scientific evidence against him was a partial thumbprint on a china saucer in the Toozes' kitchen. But the Court of Appeal was told that Mr Jones had visited the house many times and could have made the mark at any time.

After Mr Jones was found guilty of the murders at Newport Crown Court last April, Mr Justice Rougier wrote to the Lord Chancellor's Department expressing his doubts about the convictions.

"I am bound to record that the verdict caused me some surprise," he wrote. "I found myself by the end of the trial thinking that if I were the tribunal of fact, despite many suspicious circumstances, I should be conscious of significant doubt."

The campaign which yesterday won the freedom of Jonathan Jones has had a devastating effect on his girlfriend. Cheryl Tooze never doubted he was innocent of killing her parents, but the stress of the case has caused continual ailing health.

The arrest of her boyfriend of 15 years, after the trauma of losing her mother and father, led to psychiatric treatment and a series of anti-depressants. She has lost more than a stone in weight and has a stomach ulcer. Her hair, which three years ago was long and red, is now cut short and turning grey. The ill-health has forced Miss Tooze, 36, to give up her work as a market researcher. She lives on invalidity benefit. Friends say she has aged ten years in less than three.

"I really know Jonathan," she said during the legal fight. "I'd say 'Throw away the key' if I thought he'd done it."

She did not believe it when police called at their flat in Orpington, southeast London, to arrest him on December 7, 1993. She did not believe it when the jury at Newport Crown Court found him guilty. It only strengthened her resolve when members of her family ­ notably her aunt Cynthia, her father's sister ­ launched their own counter-campaign, collecting hundreds of signatures to keep Mr Jones in prison. Miss Tooze, who met her partner when they were students in South Wales, said: "I have not hurt anyone in my life and nor has Jonathan."

She did not attend the original trial, as her boyfriend told her not to come. He was so confident of acquittal, his biggest worry was media intrusion. The next day, she began working towards an appeal with his solicitors Stuart Hutton and Layla Attfield, both so convinced of his innocence that they gave their initial services free.

Miss Tooze put up a £25,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the killers ­ part of her £150,000 inheritance which was said to have been Mr Jones's motive for murder. The defence team's breakthrough came when they spoke to lift engineers whom Mr Jones claimed he saw at 1.30pm in Orpington when he returned home for lunch on the July 23, 1993 ­ the exact time of the murders.

Originally, the engineers said they were on a break, so he could not have seen them. But a till receipt from a DIY shop in south London, where their supervisor had bought equipment prior to picking them up for lunch, showed their timings could have been up to an hour out. They gave new statements saying they may have been wrong about the time and confirmed what Mr Jones claimed he had seen ­ a man crouching down mixing cement in the entrance hall of the block of flats.

Miss Tooze, who now lives with her boyfriend's parents, Graham and Pauline, in South Wales, has made weekly 5 1/2 -hour round-trips to Gartree prison in Leicestershire to see him. Mr Jones lost more than two stone. Ms Attfield, his solicitor at Hutton's in Cardiff, said: "We have got to know Jonathan very well. He is very well-spoken, and that has made his life difficult often in prison. He has spoken about some of the beatings he has witnessed between inmates." The 36-year-old market researcher considered suicide after his conviction. He was encouraged to fight on only by his family and Miss Tooze.

Last year, for an interview for The Times Magazine, she revisited the isolated farmhouse where her parents were murdered. She recalled: "When I heard they had found the bodies, I felt as if everything had been drained out of me. I packed a case, put custard and jumpers in it, silly things."

She used to have nightmares about her parents. "I dream they are alive and when I wake up they're dead. I dream Jonathan is free, and when I wake up he is in prison."

This morning, at least half the nightmare is over.