A man has described the moment he felt "shivers down his spine" when he realised he was going to prison murder he didn't commit.

Michael O'Brien was one of three men, known as the Cardiff Newsagent Three, who were wrongly accused of killing newsagent Phillip Saunders with a shovel in the backyard of his Cardiff home in 1987.

The conviction of the group in 1988 was rooted in a confession from a man named Darren Hall, who claimed they served as a lookout during a disastrous robbery.

South Wales Argus:

But Hall's confession was later retracted, and a court of appeal quashed the conviction citing his antisocial personality disorder at the time.

Speaking on the latest Talking Crime Crime Podcast, Mr O'Brien said: "I got to be honest with you. I was no angel. I want to stress that, but I wasn't a Ronnie Biggs either.

"I asked my lawyers, 'what do you think is going to happen with the case?'.

"And he said to me if Darren Hall goes in the witness box and says what he said in his statement. You're doomed. You're going down.

"That sent shivers down my spine."

Michael O'Brien, Darren Hall and Ellis Sherwood served 11 years in prison before being released in 1999.

The tactics employed by South Wales Police faced criticism during the Criminal Cases Review Commission, particularly with regard to interrogating suspects.

"I just didn't think things like this happened. I always believed in the police to be honest.

"Some of my mates used to say to me, 'the police are trying to frame me for this' and I used to say, there's no smoke without fire. You must be doing something – I was that naive.

"Then here I was seeing with my own eyes that I was being framed for murder."

Talking True Crime is a new podcast from the True Crime Newsquest Team and features conversations with reporters, journalists, experts, law enforcement, and others to discuss some of Britain's biggest cases, crimes, the justice system, and more.