"God is good," she said, smiling.

It was only after speaking at a press conference an hour later that Ms Beckett sat down and quietly let tears stream down her face, holding a glass of water in her trembling hand.

On Monday, 26 years to the day since she opened her door in her pyjamas and was arrested on charges of soliciting to murder her husband Barry Catt, Ms Beckett was awarded more than $2.3 million in damages for malicious prosecution.

She was released from jail in 2001 after she served 10 years of a 12-year sentence , and her convictions on those charges were later quashed on appeal.

"In the 10 years of her incarceration, Ms Beckett was denied the basic human right of liberty and she was separated from her family, her friends and her community. She was deprived of her role as a mother," Justice Ian Harrison wrote in his lengthy judgment.

"Loss of liberty and imprisonment in the correctional facilities of NSW is no picnic, despite the sentiment sometimes publicly echoed by proponents of longer sentences.

"One day wrongfully in jail is one day too many."

In the 1980s, Ms Beckett, a former hairdresser, was raising a family and running a delicatessen in Taree, on the mid-north coast.

But her ordinary life changed on Christmas Day 1983, when the deli was set alight, and she met Detective Peter Thomas.

Detective Thomas investigated the cause of the fire and charged Ms Beckett with arson, but the case was later "no billed", or withdrawn.

Ms Beckett then filed several complaints against Detective Thomas, accusing him of sexual harassment, and alleging corruption within Taree police.

Justice Harrison found this was the "cauldron out of which the later monumental events would develop", and Detective Thomas went on a "vengeful crusade" against Ms Beckett.

On August 24 1989, police arrested Ms Beckett and she was found guilty of soliciting two men to kill her husband, and of poisoning him with lithium.

In August 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed those convictions and ordered a retrial, but the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) did not pursue the case.

Ms Beckett successfully sued the state, with Justice Harrison finding Detective Thomas, who died last year, did not believe in Ms Beckett's guilt in two important aspects of the case, or if he did, he did not have reasonable grounds for that belief.

The judge found one of the solicit to murder allegations, which relied on evidence about a conversation in a noisy RSL with two heavily drunken people, was "absurd".

"[Detective Thomas] proceeded at full throttle to prefer a serious charge for the wrongful purpose of getting back at Ms Beckett for the mischief he felt she had caused him," Justice Harrison said.

After the decision, Ms Beckett angrily attacked the "outrageous" actions of the DPP, which she described as being a "law unto itself".

She said nothing could make up for the years she spent in jail, where she was beaten by inmates many times.

"When Peter Thomas did what he did to me, he took me in the prime of my life ... he robbed me of my most important years," she said.

"He took ten years away from me. No amount of money can bring that 10 years back."