A HAMPSHIRE welder who spent six years behind bars for a crime he did not commit has had his conviction overturned - by a team of enthusiastic law students.

Alex Allan feared he would spend the rest of his days as a convicted robber.

But today his name was cleared once and for all after eight budding legal eagles took his case to the Court of Appeal.

The would-be lawyers took up Mr Allan's case as part of their studies and won - despite the failure in 1994 of a previous appeal by a human rights group.

For the last four years, two final-year law students at the University of Northumbria have each spent a year working on the appeal.

Mr Allan, from Newcastle but currently based in Southampton for work, was sentenced to eight years in 1991 for taking part in a post office van robbery and, after losing the first appeal, served the rest of his sentence.

After his release in 1997 he contacted a free legal advice service offered by Northumbria University.

This week the Court of Appeal ruled his conviction was unsafe.

Father-of-two Mr Allan, now 40, was convicted because of an alleged confession he made to police.

After Tuesday's hearing in London he said: "I can't believe it. It hasn't sunk in yet. It's 11 years out of my life and I'm just so relieved it's all over.

"It's like a cloud has been lifted. At last I feel vindicated.

"There's no way I could have done this without the help of the students at the university, including those who have worked on the case in previous years."

The university offers the free legal advice scheme as part of its training for students and Mr Allan contacted them after seeing an advert shortly after his release.

Despite only having legal aid for junior counsel, the case was taken on by leading London criminal lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC, who conducted it at junior rates.