A man convicted of drugging and smothering his former lover six years ago was freed yesterday by three appeal judges after it emerged that a vital medical report went missing during the trial.

Richard Karling, who used to be married to the daughter of Lord Ross, a former Scottish Secretary, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Dorothy Niven whose body was found in the bedroom of her flat in Busby, Lanarkshire, in June 1995.

Yesterday the conviction was overturned by the appeal judges who heard that a report revealing that there was no trace of the drug Temazepam in Ms Niven's blood was not shown to the court. It went missing after being passed to Strathclyde Police.

Graham Bell, the advocate depute, told the High Court in Edinburgh, that the Crown would no longer fight the appeal and would not be asking for a fresh trial. Leaving the court, Mr Karling, 48, said: “I didn't have any doubts at all, because within myself I was totally innocent.”

During the court case it emerged that Mr Karling and Ms Niven, 33, had a stormy relationship which began when they met in a Glasgow sauna.

On the day Ms Niven died the couple were no longer together. However, they met again in the Pancake Place in Glasgow where Mr Karling was accused of giving her Temazepam. He told the court that he took her home in a taxi when she fell ill and maintained that she was alive when he left her in her flat. Ms Niven was found dead the following day when Mr Karling went round to see her.

Yesterday Mr Bell told Lord Kirkwood, sitting with Lord MacLean and Lady Cosgrove, that in order to justify the conviction it was essential for the Crown to establish that Mr Karling had administered Temazepam to Ms Niven and then smothered her with a pillow when the drug made her unable to resist. But, he continued, the additional evidence included information that a laboratory in London had tested Ms Niven's blood for Temazepam and the results were negative.

A man jailed for life for smothering his former girlfriend after allegedly drugging her in a Glasgow restaurant had his conviction quashed yesterday.

Blood-test results which could have cleared Richard Karling were not made known either to defence lawyers or the prosecution until nearly four years after the conviction. But last night Strathclyde Police said that any question of any evidence having been withheld by its officers was "completely untrue".

After he left the court of criminal appeal yesterday, Mr Karling, 48, who has spent five years in jail for the murder of Dorothy Niven, said: "I'm still on cloud nine. It's total euphoria."

Mr Karling, who lives in Ayr, was convicted at the High Court in Glasgow in December 1995 of administering Temazepam to Dorothy Niven, 33, in the Pancake Place in Union Street, Glasgow, so that she became intoxicated.

By a majority verdict, the jury also found him guilty of taking her in a taxi to her home in Silvan Place, Busby, and asphyxiating her by forcing her face into a pillow.

Following the convictions, defence lawyers commissioned reports from forensic pathologists which concluded that there was no scientific basis for saying that Ms Niven had been suffocated. They described the suffocation theory as "extraordinary" and "unsubstantiated speculation".

In March 1999, the Court of Criminal Appeal appointed Lord Kirkwood to hear the new forensic evidence but there was a dramatic development the following September when Herbert Kerrigan QC, defence counsel, informed the appeal judges of a "startling revelation" and "a matter of the gravest concern".

He pointed out that a crucial part of the prosecution case was that Mr Karling gave Ms Niven Temazepam and that she was smothered after her resistance had been overcome by the drug.

The defence had now learned of the existence of tests on the blood of the victim which revealed there had not been any Temazepam present.

Mr Kerrigan told the court that in 1995, an initial test for Temazepam, carried out by Glasgow University, had also been negative but a positive result was obtained after a second check.

The Crown now accepts that the second, positive result could have been wrong.

At the same time in 1995, a sample of Ms Niven's blood had been sent for analysis to Guy's Hospital in London.

"The Guy's report discloses the sample was negative," said Mr Kerrigan. "It was sent to Detective Superintendent Ronald Edgar of Strathclyde Police who, I believe, was the officer in charge of the case and is now retired. As far as I am aware that report was never divulged to the defence."

Yesterday, Graham Bell QC, appearing at the appeal court on behalf of the lord advocate, made it clear that until 1999, the prosecution had also been unaware of the results of the Guy's Hospital report.

Mr Bell stated that there remained a "substantial body of circumstantial evidence" pointing to Mr Karling's guilt.

However, the crown accepted that the decision of the jury at the trial, taken in ignorance of the fact that the sample of Ms Niven's blood examined at Guy's did not contain Temazepam, was a miscarriage of justice.

"At the trial the crown pathologists and defence pathologist proceeded on the ... erroneous belief that the Guy's laboratory had confirmed the presence of Temazepam in the deceased's blood," said Mr Bell.

A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said: "Any question of any evidence being withheld by Strathclyde Police officers is completely untrue."

Appeal judges have freed a man who has served five years of a life sentence, after it was claimed that "very significant questions" had been raised in his case.

Richard Karling, 47, has been trying to prove his innocence since a jury found him guilty in 1995 of drugging and smothering his ex-lover, Dorothy Niven, her with a pillow.

Karling, formerly married to the daughter of the late Lord Ross, one-time secretary of state for Scotland, was said to have had a "love-hate" relationship with Ms Niven.

At his trial, he accused her of living a double life - working for the Student Loans Company by day and in massage parlours at night.

But he denied murdering her and having sex with her, after suggestions that Ms Niven might have died as a result of having sex with her face pushed into a pillow.

At the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, Karling's legal team strongly criticised medical and scientific evidence produced at his trial.

His counsel, Herbert Kerrigan QC, told Lord Prosser, sitting with Lords Kirkwood and Cowie, that that hearing was almost complete and "very significant questions" had been raised.

He asked the judges to release Karling on bail, pending the final outcome of his appeal. Advocate depute Graham Bell QC, for the Crown, did not oppose the move.

Dorothy Niven was found dead in the bedroom of her home in Busby, Lanarkshire.

Karling has always claimed his ex-girlfriend was alive, although unwell, when he left her at her home the night before she died.

His trial at the High Court in Glasgow in December 1995 heard allegations that Ms Niven had been dosed with Temazepam while in a Glasgow restaurant.

Later, when she was no longer able to resist, she had been smothered.

Karling's defence team later went to the Court of Criminal Appeal with reports from their own pathologists who said there was no reason to believe Ms Niven had been smothered.

One of Britain's top experts in the field launched a scathing attack on a post mortem examination carried out on Ms Niven.

Professor Sir Bernard Knight, of Cardiff University, said the doctor who carried out the examination even failed to notice a broken rib.

He told Lord Kirkwood that the cause of Ms Niven's death should have remained "unascertained".

He claimed there was no evidence for suffocation and the level of Temazepam in the blood was within "therapeutic levels" and not enough to lower her resistance.

Lord Kirkwood also heard that other pathologists had backed the doctor, who did not know he was investigating an alleged murder.

The judge is expected to report back to his appeal court colleagues on the evidence he has heard. Karling will then have to wait to see if they overturn his conviction.

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