A woman who was twice sentenced to life imprisonment for bludgeoning her 80-year-old mother to death with a hammer was set free yesterday by the Court of Appeal.

As she walked from the cells at the High Court in London to be embraced by her husband, Patricia Bass said: "It was an absolute nightmare to be behind bars for a crime I did not commit. I loved my mother and it was terrible to be accused of murdering her.

"It was awful that people would think I was capable of doing such a terrible thing. But I was never frightened because I knew that one day the truth would come out."

The three judges quashed her conviction after ruling that the Crown's case at her second trial rested on circumstantial evidence.

Mrs Bass, 49, of Ripley, Derbyshire, was charged with murder in November 1993, 20 months after the battered body of her widowed mother, Beatrice Greig, had been found in the house in Nottingham where she lived alone. She had been beaten with a hammer, receiving between 30 and 40 blows to her head, fracturing her skull.

Mrs Bass was found guilty of the killing at her first trial at Nottingham Crown Court, but in 1996, after serving 21 months in prison, the Court of Appeal quashed her conviction and ordered a retrial. They ruled that the trial judge had misdirected the jury on crucial scientific evidence.

The appeal judges said that the case was circumstantial and the prosecution had suggested that Mrs Bass had been motivated by greed, as she stood to benefit by more than £20,000 from her mother's will.

The second trial took place in June 1997 at Birmingham Crown Court, where again a jury decided that she had murdered her mother. At her second appeal last month, Edward Rees, appearing for Mrs Bass, argued that the trial judge was wrong to allow evidence about £16,000 in Mrs Bass's account, which she said was a gift from her father shortly before he died.

The point, he said, created a "dangerous and prejudicial situation" for Mrs Bass because it left the jury with a false route to the murderer's identity. The judges agreed that the evidence was irrelevant, but disagreed that the conviction was compromised by the trial judge's refusal to let Mr Rees cross-examine an alcoholic called Graham Burgess. He had confessed to Mrs Greig's murder, but later retracted. He had been a suspect in the murder of another woman, but had never been charged or tried.

Yesterday, Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Mr Justice Smedley and Mr Justice Thomas, questioned whether the evidence against Mrs Bass, a woman of good character who had devoted the best years of her life to caring for an elderly uncle, was sufficient to establish her guilt.

At best, he said, the Crown's case against Mrs Bass was marginal. He added that the jury might have been unfairly prejudiced against her by evidence on the £16,000. Receipt of the money had established the suggestion of greed, which was the only motive advanced by the Crown.

Mrs Bass left the court with her husband, Richard, 43, who married her 48 days after they met in 1993 and after she had been charged with murder. Mr Bass, an unemployed computer analyst, said: "I never doubted her innocence. It was a long and hard struggle fighting against this injustice."

A woman who was twice jailed for life after being convicted of murdering her 80-year-old mother by bludgeoning her to death with a hammer was freed by the Court of Appeal yesterday.

Patricia Bass, 49, showed no emotion as Lord Bingham, the Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Mr Justice Brian Smedley and Mr Justice Thomas, ruled that her conviction at her second trial was unsafe and should be quashed. The Crown said it would not be seeking another retrial.

Mrs Bass, of Laurel Avenue, Ripley, Derbyshire, was first jailed for life in 1995 for the murder of her widowed mother, Beatrice Greig, at her home in Nottingham in March 1992. The next year, three Appeal Court judges quashed her conviction and ordered a retrial after ruling that the judge at her trial in Nottingham had misdirected the jury on the scientific evidence of shoe prints in blood at her mother's home.

At her retrial before a different judge and jury at Birmingham Crown Court in June last year, when the prosecution case against her rested on a web of circumstantial evidence and the shoe print evidence played no part, she was again convicted and given life.

Yesterday, she emerged from the cells at the Law Courts to be met with a bear-hug from her husband, Richard, 43, whom she married in 1993 only 48 days after they met. "It is just wonderful to be believed at last," she said.

The worst part of her imprisonment was being parted from her husband, whom she met at a discussion group at Nottingham University, and not being believed, she said. "It was awful that people would think I was capable of doing such a terrible thing," she said. She was now looking forward to going home and seeing her dog, Rufus, a lurcher, which her husband had bought while she was in prison.

Mr Bass, an unemployed computer analyst, said: "Of course, I'm delighted now we've had justice for Pat. But we still want justice for Pat's mother, who was killed six years ago. The police have no more idea now who killed her than then."

At the second appeal hearing last month, Mrs Bass's counsel, Edward Rees, argued that the trial judge had been wrong to rule that evidence about £16,000 in Mrs Bass's bank account, which she said was a gift from her father shortly before he died, should go before the jury. The admission of this evidence, he said, created a "dangerous and prejudicial situation" for Mrs Bass because it left the jury with a "false route" to the murderer's identity.

In their reserved judgment yesterday, the appeal judges agreed that the evidence was irrelevant to any issue in the case. But they rejected the submission that the conviction was also compromised by the trial judge's refusal to allow Mr Rees to cross-examine a man named Graham Burgess, who confessed to Mrs Greig's murder and then retracted, or to call evidence to implicate Burgess in an earlier murder.

Lord Bingham questioned whether, taken at its highest, the circumstantial evidence against Mrs Bass, a woman of good character who had devoted the best years of her life to caring for an elderly uncle, was sufficient to establish her guilt. It was, at best for the Crown, a "marginal" case against her, Lord Bingham said.

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