Ann Ming on her fight for justice and the new ITV drama series

In 1989, Ann’s 22-year-old daughter, Julie Hogg, disappeared after finishing a shift at her pizza delivery job. Three months later, it was Ann herself who discovered Julie’s body hidden behind the bath panel in her home.

Although Julie's estranged husband, Billy Dunlop, was tried for the murder, he was acquitted. When he later confessed, the law meant he couldn’t be retried.

That's when Ann's fight for justice began. She challenged the 800-year-old double jeopardy law that prevents an accused person being tried for the same crime twice if they have already been acquitted.

Following Ann’s 15-year campaign, the law changed in 2005 to allow retrials for serious offences if ‘new and compelling evidence’ is found and it is deemed to be in the public interest.

She succeeded in her legal battle ignoring the many – even her own solicitor – who doubted she’d win.

The year after that legal victory, Julie’s killer Billy Dunlop became the first person to be charged twice with the same offence and, ultimately, to be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Ann, now 79, was awarded an MBE in 2007 and wrote about her battle in For The Love of Julie. Now ITV has based a new four-part drama on her book, staring Sheridan Smith as Ann.

It comes to our screens in September and Ann has spoken to Saga Magazine about her legal battle and seeing her story brought to life. The full interview appears in the September edition.

Ann on seeing her story brought to life

"I cried all the way through. It took me back to the most awful times," says Ann, who lives in County Durham. "They couldn’t have picked a better actor. It was like watching myself, as though she somehow got inside my head.

"Sheridan has this ability to take on a role and become that person – she must have really studied my mannerisms through watching documentaries. I think it must have taken a lot out of her emotionally, because to play the role of someone who lived and breathed this, as I did, would be exhausting.

"Having seen her in so many series, for the person she was playing this time to be me was very strange.

"I said to Sheridan, 'The people you play are usually dead, but I’m still alive, and I think you’ve done a great job.'"

Ann on Dunlop - her daughter's murderer

“The police just didn’t provide enough evidence to convince the jury and yet within weeks of being acquitted, we heard Dunlop was bragging in pubs that he’d killed Julie. It was utterly unbearable," she says.

But despite winning her battle and seeing him jailed, he continues to haunt her. Dunlop is now requesting a transfer to an open prison and there will be a public hearing to consider it in December.

"He was 27 when he murdered Julie. He’s now 61. If he escaped from an open prison, and I wouldn’t put it past him, how would I know him? How would my family know him? They’re supposed to be creating more transparency for victims’ families, but where’s the transparency in that?”

“Life should mean life, I hope I’m dead before he gets out.”

The trauma she still lives with

Ann discovered her daughter's body, three months after she had been murdered, something that haunts her to this day.

“I had nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, sleeplessness, paranoia. I’ve had treatment, but I will never recover from PTSD and certain things, including Dunlop applying for release or transfer to an open prison, still trigger the symptoms.

"It’s a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.”

Ann's solace that Julie is still with her

While promoting her book in 2008 Ann was approached by a spiritualist.

She says: "There was a lady in the audience and, when I’d finished, she came over and said: ‘I hope you don’t mind. I’m a spiritualist medium, and all the time you were talking, your daughter was standing beside you, and she said: 'Tell Mum I’m really proud of what she’s done, and I’m holding a bunch of pink carnations'.

"Those were Julie’s favourite flowers. I was taken aback, but it made me feel better that I had carried on and that she knew I’d done everything I could to get justice for her."