Finally free, Kathleen Folbigg is looking to the future with a hopeful heart

After spending two decades behind bars and another six months out in the community as a convicted criminal, Kathleen Folbigg woke on Friday to the relief of ‘a new beginning’.

Kathleen Folbigg hopes to travel the world and one day find love, now that she dares to look at life through the eyes of a free woman.

After spending two decades behind bars and another six months out in the community as a convicted criminal, Ms Folbigg woke on Friday to the relief of “a new beginning”.

She spent the previous morning in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, overwhelmed with relief when her convictions for killing her four young children were overturned.

“There’s always a little bit of nervousness when the system has failed so many times, but in the end it worked and that’s all that matters,” Folbigg, dressed in a black T-shirt bearing a lion and the words “wild and free”, told The Saturday Telegraph.

“My next step will be to have some independence and find a place of my own, that would be coming full circle,” she said.

Kathleen Folbigg is ready to take advantage of her freedom. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Tracy Chapman, who gave Ms Folbigg a place to live when she was released from custody, said she was thrilled her friend could finally find some ­independence.

“You know when you love someone so much you just want to set them free,” she said.

Ms Folbigg said the thought of travel was frightening but she knows with time it’s something she will want to do.

Delighting in friends’ stories about holidays and travel abroad, she said “the idea still scares me a little, I’m not ready to do it yet but that’s something I want to do”.

The United Kingdom is high on her list of destinations to trace her family history.

“The only other thing is to eventually have a relationship, one that I am comfortable in.

“It might take a few years, that whole feeling of safety, but that’s something I look forward to.”

Kathleen Folbigg (middle) with her lawyer Rhanee Rego (left) and steadfast supporter and friend Tracy Chapman. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Ms Folbigg jokes that any potential suitor would have to deal with the army of steadfast friends.

“Yes there are a lot of us and there will be questionnaires to fill out,” Tracey added.

Asked if she had formed any meaningful relationships in prison, Ms Folbigg replied: “During my time in jail I made friends, but in there you are too busy being hyper-vigilant and wary, you don’t fully bond with anybody.”

For now she is content with looking forward to her first Christmas lunch in 20 years that isn’t cheap turkey and cold vegetables in a foil tray.

“I’m always happy for a lovely piece of steak, I don’t care what we have, but I might even get out of my comfort zone and try Tracy’s pork,” she said of Christmas Day this year with her friends, their children and grandchildren, some of whom she hasn’t yet met due to restrictions from being on the child protection register.

Ms Folbigg said she was also looking forward to an apology from the state as she prepares to start her life over.

Legal sources suggest she could receive in the “tens of tens of millions of dollars” in compensation after the state’s highest court acquitted her of the murders of Patrick, Sarah and Laura, and the manslaughter of her oldest child, Caleb, between 1989 and 1999.

Ms Folbigg’s lawyer said she thanked the NSW Attorney-General “for indicating he will receive submissions on compensation” which should fit “the egregious miscarriage of justice suffered by Kathleen.”

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