A Bridgwater man has begun an appeal against his 1991 murder conviction in the Court of Appeal in London.

Alan Charlton was sent to prison 30 years ago for the murder of teenager Karen Price in Cardiff although he has always denied the crime. His co-defendant Idris Ali was also convicted and has since been released following an investigation into the South Wales Police in the 1990s when his conviction was quashed and Ali pleaded guilty of manslaughter. It is possible that had Charlton done the same he would now be free.

The investigation into the Welsh police centred on their handling of a different murder, that of Lynette White in 1988. Three men convicted of that crime were freed when DNA evidence revealed a different killer and it was that case that led to Ali’s release.

Karen Price was 15 when she disappeared from a children’s home in 1981. Workers clearing a garden in Cardiff found a skeleton wrapped in a carpet in 1989 prompting an enquiry. DNA evidence matching Karen and her family together with a reconstruction of her face by Richard Neave of Manchester University using clay based on her skull led to her identity being revealed.

The address in Fitzhamon Embankment in the city was where Ali and Charlton had been living at the time where the police alleged they had been Karen’s pimps when she turned to prostitution.

In 1994 Charlton failed with an appeal against his conviction as did Ali’s but was given leave to appeal again with Ali in 2014. Ali’s appeal is against his manslaughter conviction. The Bridgwater man got a minimum life sentence of 15 years but remains in gaol a quarter of a century later as he has denied the murder.

The appeal in the London court on The Strand will take some weeks and could end in the convictions being upheld, a retrial or it being quashed and freedom for Charlton who is now 56.