A 15-year-old girl convicted of killing Bradford schoolgirl Aimee Wellock was released from custody because she is heavily pregnant.

The girl was released at London's appeal Court at the end of yesterday's bid to quash Aimee's killers' convictions.

Alan and Jackie Wellock said the continuing court proceedings meant they were unable to properly grieve the loss of their daughter.

Aimee, 15, of Allerton, Bradford, died last June when she collapsed running away from a gang who assaulted her and two friends as they strolled in Chellow Dene.

Claire Carey, 18, and two girls aged 17 and 15, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were found guilty of Aimee's manslaughter and affray after a trial last October.

The keen dancer, a pupil at Parkside School in Culling-worth, was suffering from a rare heart condition, which was not known to her family or doctors, and the stress of the attack caused her death.

Carey, of Allerton Park Ave-nue, Allerton, was sentenced to two years' detention in a young offenders' institution.

Her co-accused were told they would be released on licence after serving half of a two-year sentence in a young offenders' institution.

Yesterday lawyers for the trio went to the Court of Appeal in London to appeal against their convictions and sentences, claiming the convictions were unsafe.

A bail application was successfully made on behalf of the heavily pregnant 15-year-old who was the only one of the three girls present in court.

The move came after Lord Justice Dyson, sitting with Mr Justice Tomlinson and Mr Justice Andrew Smith, announced that their decision in the appeals against conviction and sentence would be given "as soon as we can".

Granting bail, Lord Justice Dyson told the 15-year-old's counsel Gareth Evans QC: "We are disposed to grant bail to your client pending our decision, but we want to make it absolutely clear that that in no way pre-empts the outcome of the appeal.

"The outcome might well mean, if it goes a certain way, that she will be separated from her baby. We are taking this unusual and wholly exceptional course because we have regard to the fact that she is as young as she is and is about to have a baby."

Carey's barrister, Michael Harrison QC, argued that the jury could not have found it was foreseeable that Aimee was vulnerable to heart failure.

The three appeal court judges heard a day of submissions on the law relating to affray and manslaughter, but the court decided to reserve judgement on its ruling.

Mr Wellock, who attended the hearing with his wife, said: "It is dragging it on and we are still unable to put Aimee to rest. We want jus-tice and then we want peace of mind."