The daughter of a man hanged in what is claimed to have been Huddersfield’s greatest miscarriage of justice has spoken of the devastation her family suffered in the wake of her father’s execution.

But in her first media interview Bronwyne Ashby, daughter of Alfred Moore, says there may be a breakthrough in her campaign to have her father posthumously pardoned.

After sending a Freedom of Information request to West Yorkshire Police, Ms Ashby has been told that the force still holds several exhibits which may have helped send her father to the gallows.

Mr Moore was hanged for the murders of Det Insp Duncan Fraser and PC Gordon Jagger outside his farm on Cockley Hill Lane, Kirkheaton, in 1951.

It is thought that Mr Moore did not pull the trigger and the trial, which secured his execution in 1952, was riddled with errors and dubious evidence.

Ms Ashby, 65, of Middlesex, hopes the exhibits can be re-examined to help convince the Criminal Cases Review Commission to reopen her father’s case.

The grandmother, who was two when her dad was hanged at Armley Prison, said: “We never talked about it.

“My mum had a breakdown. You just don’t think that can happen to someone who was innocent.

“Up to the day he was hanged he thought: ‘You can’t hang me – I’m innocent.’

“I was protected. My sisters never said anything to me but I knew something tragic had happened. There was a tension.

“I found out when I was 16. I just couldn’t believe it and at the time I thought he had done it.

“Most of our family moved to Australia and New Zealand because of the stigma.

“We did a lot of travelling when I was young. It was very unsettling.”

Mr Moore, who burgled several properties to supplement his income as a chicken farmer, had become an embarrassment to Huddersfield Borough Police.

Ms Ashby, who works as a bookkeeper, believes he was framed as the police had been unable to pin the burglaries on him.

She said: “Most of the people in the area didn’t think my father had done it simply because the police didn’t look for anyone else. The police got frustrated.”

Ms Ashby added: “Apparently he had a temper but he spent a lot of time with the girls and they remember having fun with him.

“He was a peaceable man.”

Following a nine-year campaign by retired detective Steve Lawson and Ms Ashby, both claim police have now found the exhibits.

But the forces’ legal team is deciding what to do with them, Mr Lawson and Ms Ashby say.

The pair have accused the force of dragging their heels.

A police spokesman said: “This information request is still under consideration and we will be responding to the requestor in due course. A written apology has been sent to the requestor apologising for a delay in responding to their request.

“We will not be commenting further at this time.”

Mr Lawson, now a pub landlord, alleges he had previously been told by police that they did not have any of the exhibits used in Mr Moore’s trial.

He said: “With a case like this we’re fighting the establishment. We’ll have to see what they’ve got and take it with a bit of caution.”

Ms Ashby added: “I sincerely hope I live to see the day when my dad is exonerated.”