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

The girl was released at London's Appeal Court at the end of last Thursday'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, who was a student at Parkside School, in Cullingworth.

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

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.

Aimee, a keen dancer, was suffering from a rare heart condition that was not known to her family or doctors, and the stress of the attack caused her death, the trial jury found.

Carey, of Allerton Park Avenue, Allerton, was sentenced to two years detention in a young offenders' institution but will not be released until the Parole Board feels it is safe to do so.

Her co-accused were told they would be released on licence after serving half of a two-year detention and training order at a young offenders' institution.

Last Thursday lawyers for the trio appealed against their convictions and sentences, claiming the convictions were unsafe.

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.

"In the first place, we want justice and then we want peace of mind. We want the time to be able to grieve properly and we haven't had that.

"All this does is prolong things and it is not easy to deal with. Our emotions are still not settled and are not likely to be for some considerable time after the appeal.

"If they are acquitted, I don't know where that leaves us. At the moment we continue to put our faith in the legal system to bring us the outcome we are looking for.

"They are entitled to appeal and they are going down that road without any thoughts about whether they are right or wrong. They are just thinking of themselves."

At the end of the hearing the judges reserved their decision and they granted bail to the pregnant 15-year-old girl.