The family of a man who spent 20 years in jail for a murder he didn't commit today vowed to continue his fight for justice following his death.

Anthony Steel, 52, who was found guilty of murdering 20-year-old baker's clerk Carole Wilkinson three decades ago, was taken ill at home and died in hospital at the weekend.

But TV producer Peter Hill, who took up Mr Steel's case ten years ago, said he and Mr Steel's partner, Margaret, intended to continue to pursue compensation from the Home Office.

"Only last week I talked to him about seeking a judicial review of the case and I have also discussed it with our QC," said Mr Hill. "Tony was angry about what the Home Office had been doing to him. I have spoken to his family and they say the fight for compensation will go on."

Mr Steel was jailed for life in 1979 for the murder of Carole, who was bludgeoned to death with a coping stone as she walked to work on a chilly October morning in 1977. Her body was found in a field off Gain Lane at Thornbury.

Surgeons put Carole, of Ravenscliffe, on a life support machine but took the decision to switch it off after 60 hours. The case made history as she was the first murder victim to be certified dead in such circumstances.

Mr Steel, who was then a 22-year-old unemployed gardener living in Cobden Street, Idle, was arrested later and confessed to the killing during police interviews lasting seven and a half hours over three days. But he later claimed he had been "badgered" into the confession by the interviewing officers.

During his two decades of imprisonment he continuously and vehemently denied carrying out the murder.

His conviction was finally quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2003, four years after he was freed from prison on parole.

The Appeal Court ruling followed new evidence from psychologists which indicated Mr Steel was mentally handicapped and a significantly more vulnerable interviewee than could have been appreciated at the time of the trial. The appeal judges said the new evidence of his vulnerable personality could have made a significant difference to the thinking of the trial jury.

Mr Steel, who had moved to Gateshead from Halifax after his release from prison, has received around £50,000 in a number of interim compensation payments but the Home Office has still not ruled on a figure for a full payout.

Mr Hill, who made a TV film about the Steel case and also presented new evidence to the Criminal Case Review Commission, described it as one of Yorkshire's worst miscarriages of justice.

He said: "Tony was seriously ill and took 60 pills a day, which he carried in a suitcase, and underwent a lifesaving heart bypass operation within months of being released from prison. I believe they let him out so he did not die in prison.

"He wanted a new heart, which might have given him an extra 20 years of life, but he never got his money."

Mr Hill said Mr Steel had returned home after visiting his elderly mother in Halifax on Saturday and his partner, Margaret, found him shaking in bed. She called a doctor and he was taken to hospital where he died that night.

Mr Hill said: "He has never been well since he left prison and was driven away from his home city because people were calling him a murderer and saying he had been released on a technicality.

"But he had had a good life in these last few years. He has not had much money, but he has had this wonderful woman at his side. Margaret became a prison visitor at Frankland Jail, where he was being held, after watching my TV film about the case. She got to know him and liked him. They got together again after his release and were blissfully happy.

"In the last few months they had been on three holidays, to Turkey, Spain and Lanzarote. There couldn't have been a bigger contrast to the 20 years he spent in prison, sharing a cell smaller than a bedroom with a rapist and a murderer, for a crime he did not commit."

Mr Hill said the processing of their application for compensation had been delayed because the Home Office said they had lost Mr Steel's medical records. But lawyers believe he could have been entitled to more than a million pounds. Any compensation would now go to his family estate. Mr Steel has three grown-up children and a six-year-old daughter.

His sister, Angela lives in Halifax.

After winning his appeal Mr Steel claimed Bradford police had destroyed his alibi and would not let him see a solicitor until he had signed a confession. He also claimed to know who the real killer was.

But West Yorkshire Police said the case had been reviewed after the Court of Appeal decision and no fresh information was uncovered.

A spokesman said: "We are not currently pursuing any active lines of inquiry. We would welcome and consider any new information that may come to light."