Australian mother Kathleen Folbigg pardoned and released after 20 years in jail over deaths of her four children

Kathleen Folbigg outside court after having bail refused for charges of murdering her children in April 2001.

An Australian state government attorney-general said today a woman who has spent 20 years in prison for killing her four children had been pardoned and released.

New South Wales Attorney-General Michael Daley said he had advised Governor Margaret Beazley to unconditionally pardon Kathleen Folbigg, now 55.

Daley said former justice Tom Bathurst had advised him last week that there was reasonable doubt about Folbigg’s guilt based on new scientific evidence that the deaths could have been from natural causes.

Bathurst conducted the second inquiry into Folbigg’s guilt.

Kathleen Folbigg outside court after having bail refused for charges of murdering her children in April 2001. Photo / Supplied

Folbigg was serving a 30-year prison sentence which was to expire in 2033. She would have become eligible for parole in 2028.

The children died separately over a decade, at between 19 days and 19 months old, and their mother insisted their deaths were from natural causes.

Bathurst’s final report could recommend that the New South Wales Court of Appeals quash her convictions.