ANGELA CANNINGS WAS WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED FOR MURDERING TWO OF HER BABIES AND SERVED 20 MONTHS BEFORE SHE WAS RELEASED ON APPEAL. HER FAMILY WAS TORN APART, BUT NOW A NEW BBC DRAMA TELLING THEIR STORY IS HELPING THEM TO PUT THEIR LIVES BACK TOGETHER

They talk about their experience in terms of natural disaster. It was "a thunderbolt", "completely devastating", a tsunami of the soul, washing away their old life and leaving them clinging to driftwood. A forthcoming BBC drama, Cherished, starring Timothy Spall and Sarah Lancashire, gives some idea of the emotional maelstrom which wrecked the Cannings' lives, but did not quite sink them.

The family moved from Salisbury to Cornwall in April last year, anxious to escape the sad memories associated with the Wiltshire town. Money is tight as neither has worked since the death of Matthew more than five years ago, and their home is small, but they enjoy an uplifting view of hills, valleys and an 11th-Century castle. "It would be lovely if we could stay here and settle, " says Angela, "because this area is so calming and peaceful. I want it to work, so it's just a case of trying to get through the emotional stuff and dealing with it day to day."

When I arrive just before ten in the morning, Jade answers the door and leads me into the living room. Terry Cannings says a cheery hello. He is sitting at the dinner table, rolling an arsenal of cigarettes in preparation for the interview; no matter how often he talks about it, he says, it doesn't get any easier. "You'll have to forgive us smoking, " says Angela, coming into the room. "For eight years we gave up, but when all this started Terry went out and bought a packet of fags and that was us again."

Angela puts the kettle on, Jade goes up to her room, Terry keeps on rolling, and I cast an eye around. It looks like a regular home, a mix of toys and grown-up whatnots lying about, and there are family pictures on the living room walls. The difference is that out of the four babies in the photographs, only Jade is still alive. Matthew stopped breathing aged fourand-a-half-months, just as seven-week-old Jason had done in 1991 and three-month-old Gemma in 1989. "I look at Matthew's picture while I'm eating, " says Terry, "and I feel . . . I just feel that we've let him down."

Cherished is very specific about the events of November 12, 1999, the day Matthew Cannings died. At 9.43am the baby alarm beeping let Angela know that something was wrong with his breathing. At 10.06am Terry burst through the front door, Angela having phoned him at Tesco, where he worked as a bakery manager.

At 10.41am they arrived at hospital with their dead son.

The Cannings are now seated in the living room, armed with coffee, cigarettes and paper hankies. "Do you remember the events of that day as specifically as Cherished suggests?" I ask.

"I do, " says Terry, instantly.

"To be honest with you, " says Angela, "it was a blur at the time, and even more so now."

"Whereas I would say the opposite, " Terry nods. "I even remember exactly what I was doing at work when the call came in; I was just about to run up to the freezer to get some Danish pastries out." He gives a half laugh at this mundanity. "And the whole events leading up to when I went to bed that night, I believe will always stay with me as though it was yesterday. Everything about that day will stay in my head forever more, and what the police and social done to us. All those things will scar me for life, I think."

The deaths of Gemma and Jason had been regarded as straightforward cot deaths, but within hours of Matthew's death, police considered Angela a murder suspect, and social services had placed Jade, then aged three, on the "at risk" register. Jade, the Cannings were informed, had to spend that night with relatives, and Angela had to make a choice: while she was being investigated, she could either live with her husband while Jade went into foster care, or she could live away from the family home while Jade and Terry stayed together. "What choice is that?" she says now. "Of course I had to live away."

At the very moment when the Cannings desperately needed to be together, to provide each other comfort, and to mourn their loss, they were pulled apart by the legal system.

"Because of that, " says Terry, "we were never able to grieve for Matthew."

They still have not been able to come to terms with his loss. More pressing matters intervened. Angela was officially arrested on November 16. She was only allowed to see Jade for six hours a week, always under the supervision of a social worker. Like all the Cannings' children, Jade had suffered an Acute Life Threatening Event, or ALTE, in infancy; she was admitted to hospital aged ten weeks having experienced breathing difficulties.

However, unlike the others, Jade did not subsequently die.

"It was implied when Angela was arrested that they were going to put the charge of murder on the three, and attempted murder of Jade, " says Terry. "I spoke to the police at the time, and I said, 'Please do not pursue the attempted murder because that little girl will have to live with that.' Luckily it never came to a charge."

The investigation went on and on, and didn't come to court until mid-February, 2002, more than two years since Matthew's death, by which time the charge of murdering Gemma had been dropped because of a lack of medical records.

Terrified that social services would take Jade into care, Terry devoted all his time to looking after her. He lost his job, was forced to sell the family home, and moved into council housing.

"Did you ever worry that Terry might think you were guilty?" I ask Angela.

"I suppose the fear was when I had been officially charged, " she says. "There Terry was with a wife who had been charged with murder. And I did quite often think to myself, 'Does he believe me?'" She turns to him. "I don't think I ever said it to you."

In fact, Terry's faith was unyielding. "I knew how desperately she had wanted children, " he says, "and I knew how good she was as a mum.

She was a model mum. If I had any doubts about Angela, and I mean one per cent of doubt, I would certainly not be letting her live with Jade now, and I wouldn't be living with Angela now."

Nevertheless, she was found guilty. "I have no doubt that for a woman like you to have committed the terrible acts of suffocating your own babies there must have been something seriously wrong with you, " said Justice Heather Hallett, before sentencing. "All the evidence indicates you wanted the children, and apart from these terrible incidents you cherished them."

While Terry is out of the room, answering the phone, Angela tells me about her experience in the courtroom. "Listening to prosecution talking about me as if I was this woman who was hellbent on having children and then harming them and killing them, I just wanted to scream out, 'I couldn't do that! That's not me!'" Angela and Terry seem like a nice couple.

He's big, friendly and expressive; it's no surprise to learn that he's a dog person. She seems slightly more reserved and makes her points concisely. The overwhelming impression I get from both of them, but especially Terry, is of suppressed rage.

Much of their anger is directed at Professor Sir Roy Meadow, an expert paediatrician and proponent of the so-called Meadow's Law - that one cot death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder. Meadow testified against Angela as well as, in separate cases, Trupti Patel, who was found not guilty, and Sally Clark who was imprisoned but subsequently cleared by the Court of Appeal.

Meadow's Law is now discredited, and the fall-out from that continues. It was recently announced that Donna Anthony, who was jailed for life in 1998 for murdering her son and daughter, the case against her having rested on Meadow's evidence, will be allowed to appeal against the conviction.

Anthony's case is one of several referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission after the quashing of Angela Cannings' conviction;

the phrase "post-Cannings" is now legal jargon, the judges who set her free having made the ruling that nobody can be convicted on expert witness alone without proper physical evidence such as would be required in a murder case.

When I mention Meadow to the Cannings, they look as if they just swallowed sour milk.

"It was almost like he was on a witch-hunt, " says Angela. "I believe the man has serious problems."

One reason the Cannings agreed to participate in the making of Cherished was that they hope Meadow and others involved in the prosecution will watch it. "I want our story documented because I don't want any other family to have to go through this, " says Terry. "I hope that the relevant authorities who did this to us will sit down with their cup of tea or glass of whisky on that particular night and say, 'Boy, we got this wrong. We can never let it happen again.'" The Cannings met with Sarah Lancashire and Timothy Spall (who told Terry, "Having walked in your f**king shoes for four weeks, I never want to f**king walk in them again"), and visited the set. They saw filming of the scene where Lancashire as Angela, convicted of murder, is taken from the courtroom and put into a prison van. "Straight away, that brought it all back, " says Angela now. "But it was surreal. I had to pinch myself

and say, yes, this did happen.

"Also, during the whole time this was happening to us, I was in denial. I couldn't understand why it was going on, why we were having to live like we did. In the court room it was like I was looking down on somebody else.

Even when I was convicted, I still couldn't get it in my head that they had done this to me.

It was like they had completely stripped me.

It was soul-destroying, heartbreaking, devastating."

The main reason the Cannings wanted Cherished to be made was so they had something to show Jade. They want an accurate documentation that she can watch whenever she wants to understand what happened to her between the ages of three and nearly eight. "It will be easier for her to look at something in moving pictures rather than us trying to explain it to her, " says Angela.

When I meet the Cannings they haven't yet seen Cherished; nor have they decided when best to show it to Jade. But when I phone a few days later, all three have seen the drama. "We cried for about 95 per cent of it, " says Terry.

"We looked like we'd had salt poured into our eyes."

Terry and Angela watched it first. They then showed Jade a couple of scenes, but she asked to see it all. "She did cry at the end of it, " says Angela, "and said, 'Mummy, that'll never happen again, will it?' And I said, 'No.' Then she watched it again yesterday, and she was absolutely fine. So I asked her, 'How do you feel now you've seen it?' and she said, "I'm glad I've watched it, mummy, because it tells me what happened.'

"We were very worried about all the emotional issues involved, but she was quite insistent that she wanted to see it. So I think she now grasps the fact of what we did all go through, in her own little nine-year-old way."

The Cannings talk easily about their experiences, I think because they are used to it.

The only time during the two hours I spend with them that their emotions spill over is when I ask about Matthew, not in the context of the investigation and trial, which diminishes him to the abstract level of forensics and statistics, but simply what he was like. "Did you have time to get to know him?" I ask.

"The first shock I had was coming round from the anaesthetic after I had him, because I had a Caesarean, and being told by Terry that he was nine pounds two, " Angela replies. "He was big. The only way I can describe Matthew is that he was a big, bouncy, cuddly, happy baby. And he was just great."

Angela was taking steroids for a medical condition so she had to stop breastfeeding Matthew. "He went straight on the bottle, no problems at all. He was feeding well, he was a happy baby, and Jade was all over him. She helped change his nappies, she helped feed him, and I wanted that because that's what I remember from my childhood. It was so lovely to see Jade with Matthew. I used to take him to Tesco every week and do the shopping, put him in the little baby thing.

People would say, 'Alright, Ange, how are you doing?' and Jade would say, 'That's my brother.' It was just perfect, and to have it all taken away . . ."

She cries a little then. Terry picks up the story. "For our relationship, that three or four months when we were together as four was our happiest."

This is the tragedy of the Cannings - they are a square which has been forced to become a triangle; one of the corners of their family is missing. I'd say that this is why they place such importance on their dog Shadow, an English Setter they have had since March. "It sounds awfully corny, " says Terry, "but he's the one thing that keeps the three of us together."

"He loves Jade, " says Angela. "He loves being with us, he's so lovable, and he's part of our future together. He's something that we really love."

Loving a dog is easy. They're not complicated, they don't suffer from broken hearts, they don't compulsively talk about old woes. The Cannings, by their own admission, are "learning to be a family again" and Shadow is part of that.

He makes things seem more normal. He needs walked and fed. They need him.

Although Angela has been out of prison for more than a year, the Cannings still have problems. "Over the last six to eight months, the realisation of what we've been through is now hitting the three of us, " says Angela. "Terry and I are now in counselling and Jade has just started with a play therapist."

The Cannings are quite open about the damage done to their marriage and family life.

AsAngela was sentenced to life imprisonment, Terry - who is now 51 - grew to believe that they wouldn't be together again until he was in his mid-Sixties and Jade had left home.

Mentally, he let her go. So when they were reunited, the marriage couldn't just pick up where it had left off. "That's why we are struggling now, " he says. "This has almost turned us into a brother and sister. We don't have the fantastic relationship we had five years ago. So I hate them for that as well because they've taken that away from us."

During the time that Angela spent in prison, aperiod Terry experienced as "a suicide trip", he visited her once a month, making the threehour drive from Salisbury to Bullwood Hall Prison in Essex. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and to hear her say the same, but the environment was forbidding and artificial. He couldn't get the words out. "I never lost my love for Angela, and I never lost the will to fight for her because I knew that she had done nothing wrong, but to try to maintain a relationship when you are so distant was hard."

Meanwhile, at home, things were far from easy. Terry had been frightened, before Angela was imprisoned, that social services would take Jade from him and put her into care. "As hard as it is to lose a child through death, " he says, "the fear of losing Jade to social was worse."

Now completely deprived of her mother, Jade was exhibiting real signs of distress. "She used to stare into a mirror at the base of the bed or in the hallway, crying, 'Where's my mummy? Where's my mummy?'" says Terry.

"Then she would turn that sadness into anger and beat me up. I know that sounds corny, a big guy like me, but I would discuss this with the play therapist and they said I had to let her do that as it was the only way for her to get rid of the angry emotion."

Angela was reunited with her daughter the day after her release. "She came running through the door, missed a step and jumped straight into my arms, " says Angela. "It was just fantastic. I looked around because I expected a social worker to be there, then I realised there wasn't one, and oh, I gave her the biggest hug."

As Angela is telling me this, Jade comes back into the room and sits with her mother. "Do you remember that day, Jade?" I ask.

"Yes, " she says.

"What was the song you sang, Jade?" asks Terry. "You made it up yourself."

"She's free, she's free, " sings Jade. "She's coming home to me."

Terry says that because he was forced into such closeness with his daughter their relationship is "unbelievably strong".

Conversely, Angela and Jade have so far been unable to properly rebuild the mother-daughter bond. "I have got a mountain to climb with Jade, " she says, "because I had four years of not being a full-on mum to her. I know it's going to be difficult, but I hold on because I have been given my life back."

Angela's conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on December 10, 2003, on the grounds that there may have been a genetic cause, as yet unidentified, for the deaths of the children. "All I remember was hearing a big 'Yes!' from the courtroom, " Angela recalls. She had to return to her cell while paperwork was completed, and began to panic that they weren't going to release her after all. Two hours later, she and Terry were reunited.

"We just stood there and hugged each other and we were both shaking and crying, " she says. "And I said, 'It's over, it's over.' I remember when I put my arms around him I realised that he'd put a bit of weight on." Terry chuckles at this, and Angela continues. "We just hugged for ten minutes, and after that the family came in and we were all hugging each other. It was just pure relief. It was like a big balloon had been blown and blown full of air, and then suddenly it popped and all the air came out."

Outside the court, Angela told reporters:

"There are two very special people in my life:

my soul mate Terry, who has stood by me, and our very precious daughter Jade, who has been our inspiration to carry on."

I ask what exactly she means by that term, soul mate. "When we first got together we were friends, " she says. "It became a relationship, but we were friends to start with, and I believe that because of everything we've been through we know each other inside out. He is the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope that for the future we can recover something and stay together. All my adult life, I've only ever known Terry. I'd never had a serious relationship before Terry, and I just believe that he is my soul mate."

According to screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes, who grew close to the Cannings while researching Cherished, "Their marriage was an attraction of opposites, but that meant when this terrible crisis occurred, they reacted very differently, and a lot of the problems they have are to do with the fact that they have realised now they are incredibly different."

At 41, Angela is ten years younger than Terry.

He has been married before, and has two grown-up sons; the younger boy was raised from the age of nine by Angela and Terry. "I was a step-mum before I was a mum, " she says.

Angela was brought up in an Irish Catholic family, and was a regular at mass until she was 16. She rebelled, but retained her belief on some level. The experience of losing her babies and then her freedom, however, has "dented" her faith.

"I believe in God, " says Terry, who was raised as a Methodist. "Angela doesn't quite understand it, but it helps me. I believe that there is a reason for all this and that I will meet up with my children one day. He took my children away from me. I believe that when I die I will meet them again."

I ask Angela, "Do you believe that?"

"I don't, " she says. "At the moment I don't think like Terry does. Maybe it's the fear that if I met up with them again they'd be taken away again."

Just before Christmas, the Cannings learned that their application for financial compensation for wrongful imprisonment had been rejected by the Home Office. "It was another kick in the teeth, " says Angela, "and I'm angry because it seems to me that nobody wants to own up and say they did wrong."

They have launched an appeal.

The Cannings are astonished when people ask them how they celebrated Angela's release from prison. Why should they have a party, they respond, when all they got was the justice and compassion that was denied them four years previously?

They are now at a point that isn't particularly enjoyable. It's one of those moments when you wish you could grab the remote control and rewind or fast forward through your life. If Terry could go back, he'd return to half past nine on November 12, 1999, before Matthew died, when he was a cheery family man with a great marriage, two kids, and a job he loved.

But you can't go back, of course, only slowly forwards, and so the Cannings are inching towards happiness.

As Angela puts it, "When we've got our life back, and we're connecting as a family, then we'll have a celebration."

"And we'll invite anybody and everybody, " Terry smiles.

"But until then, " says Angela, "this is us."

Cherished is on BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm. Angela Cannings - The Real Story is on BBC1, Wednesday, 7.30pm