CHAPLAINS at the jail where blind Yvonne Sleightholme is imprisoned for murder have called for a Royal Pardon.

The Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist chaplains at Styal Prison say they personally feel there is a high probability that Sleightholme - convicted in 1991 of shooting a Ryedale farmer's wife - may be a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

They fear that, having already served the ten-year tariff set by a judge, she could be lost in the bureaucracy of the system for many years to come without a pardon.

"This would be a travesty and one which we would seek to avoid," they say in a letter.

The document has been passed to the Evening Press by Margaret Leonard and David Hamilton, two Londoners who have campaigned to overturn Sleightholme's conviction for killing Jayne Smith in a farmyard at Salton, near Malton, in 1988.

They said today an application for a pardon would be made if all other legal options were exhausted, including an ongoing application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

In the meantime, they hoped another application for parole could be made imminently, following the refusal of Sleightholme's first application by the Parole Board in 1997.

The chaplains say in their letter that they have watched Sleightholme work as an orderly in their chapel for more than two years and have had plenty of opportunities to assess her character.

"We have been in a unique situation with regard to Yvonne, and have explored a variety of issues with her in considerable depth over a long time.

"She has always been very open to talk with chaplains about her past, and has applied considerable maturity and awareness of her situation and its effects on all concerned."

They say she has been "outstanding" in her work as an orderly, and had been helping other inmates with their situation.

They are certain she is blind and has never used her condition as an excuse for special treatment.

Sleightholme has been blind since not long after her arrest for the murder, but some have suggested she is faking her condition.

In other documents passed to the Evening Press, a consultant opthalmologist and a neurologist agree that there is no evidence of any physical cause for her visual failure.

The opthalmologist says it is not within her province to say whether Sleightholme is feigning blindness or not, but she believes she had a visual loss which is "likely to be unintentional".

In another report, a psychiatrist expresses her belief that Sleightholme is blind as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Updated: 11:35 Monday, February 18, 2002