CONVICTED blind killer Yvonne Sleightholme faces an uncertain future in prison by vowing never to admit her guilt.

Though her ten-year tariff passed this week, the 48-year-old will remain behind bars with no hope for an immediate release.

Had she admitted her guilt, Sleightholme might by now have faced parole or an alternative form of rehabilitation under the terms of the tariff.

But in a statement to the Evening Press earlier this year, she vowed never to confess to the shooting dead of a Ryedale woman.

Sleightholme, from Staxton, was jailed in May 1991 for the murder of Jayne Smith.

Mrs Smith was shot dead at Broats Farm, Salton, near Malton, in December 1988.

Her husband, William, a farmer, who found her body, had previously asked Sleightholme to marry him, but had broken off the engagement and later married Mrs Smith.

During the trial at Leeds Crown Court Sleightholme went hysterically blind and has never regained her sight.

She served the first part of her sentence in Durham Jail and is now being held in Styal, in Cheshire.

Sleightholme consistently denied shooting Mrs Smith but her version of events - that she was shot by hired hitmen - was rejected by the court.

Two campaigners, Margaret Leonard and David Hamilton, have spent hundreds of hours working through evidence as they have sought to prove she is the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

But their efforts were dealt a massive blow earlier this year at the High Court.

Two judges rejected their application for leave to apply for a judicial review of a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refuse to refer her case to the Court of Appeal.

Despite this, the two Londoners have vowed to fight on and are understood now to be pursuing fresh lines of inquiry.

Updated: 11:10 Saturday, May 12, 2001