A MUM, who was freed after being wrongly convicted of killing two of her children, died accidentally after suffering acute alcohol intoxication, a coroner has ruled.

Coroner Caroline Beasley-Murray said there was no evidence Sally Clark, 42, intended to commit suicide.

Mrs Clark was found dead at her home, in Hatfield Peverel, in March, the inquest at Chelmsford Coroner's Court was told.

She had been found guilty of murdering her sons, eight-week-old Harry and 11-week-old Christopher, following a trial at Chester Crown Court, in 1999.

She served more than three years at Bullwood Hall prison, Hockley, before being cleared by the Court of Appeal, in 2003.

Her family moved from Cheshire to Essex to be closer to her while she was in prison.

Coroner's officer John Pheby told the inquest Mrs Clark was found dead in bed by her cleaner, on March 16.

Post mortem tests showed she had a concentration of alcohol in her blood which would have made her five times over the drink-drive limit - 428mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

Home Office pathologist Dr David Rouse concluded Mrs Clark had died as a result of acute alcohol intoxication, having carried out tests at Broomfield Hospital, in Chelmsford.

Mrs Beasley-Murray concluded Mrs Clark had died as a result of an accident, adding: "There has clearly been a most tragic history leading up to Mrs Clark's sad death."

Neither Mrs Clark's husband, Stephen, nor any other relatives were at the inquest, but a family spokesman said after the hearing she had never recovered from her ordeal.

The spokesman said: "All Sally's family and friends knew her as a loving and devoted mother, wife and daughter, a view also shared by all the professionals who cared for her and her children.

"Sally was unable to come to terms with the false accusations, based on flawed medical evidence and the failures of the legal system, which debased everything she had been brought up to believe in.

"Having suffered what was acknowledged by the Court of Appeal to be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent years, it is hardly surprising she was never able to return to being the happy, kind and generous person we all knew and loved."