Mr Booker served a 21-month prison sentence before his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2006.
He would tell the Sheffield Star afterwards how his “world fell to pieces” upon going to jail, where he shared a cell with an armed robber.
Abigail Rolling, who was Mr Booker’s defence solicitor during the case, describes her client as the “quintessential Good Samaritan”.
“It’s not just an innocent man being convicted of something they hadn’t done,” she says.
“It’s someone who went to help a stranger.”
Ms Rolling, who describes Mr Booker’s conviction as the “lowest point” in her professional life, says the defendant and victim “were strangers”.
“There was no evidence their paths ever crossed that night,” she explains.
“There was no motive for an assault. No witnesses. No CCTV.”
In a bizarre twist, however, a panel of three judges ruled it was “not in the public interest” to disclose why they were now so certain he was not the killer.
The previous year, the CPS had written to his defence counsel, effectively encouraging them to appeal the guilty verdict. It’s a move Ms Rolling describes as “unprecedented” in the legal world, as in almost all appeal cases the burden is on the defence to gather new evidence that might overturn a verdict.