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A man who has been in prison for nearly 40 years has finally had his conviction quashed after the longest miscarriage of justice in British history.
Peter Sullivan, now 68, was convicted of the brutal 1986 murder of florist Diane Sindall, 21, in Bebington, Merseyside.
However Court of Appeal judges freed him today after 38 years in prison, after new DNA evidence showed he did not commit the attack.
Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, told the court that the breakthrough is ‘sufficient fundamentally to cast doubt on the safety of the conviction’.
Sullivan held his hand to his mouth and cried as he watched judges free him via video link from HMP Wakefield.
In a statement read by his lawyer following his hearing, Peter said he was not ‘angry’ or ‘bitter’.
He said: ‘I lost my liberty four decades ago over a crime I did not commit.
‘What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened … was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.
‘The truth shall set you free.’
The freed man always maintained his innocence after he was convicted in November 1987 for the alleyway murder of the 21-year-old.
It was alleged that he went out armed with a crowbar after a day of heavy drinking before a chance encounter with the florist and part-time barmaid.
She was brutally raped and murdered as she walked to an all-night petrol station after finishing a shift at a pub.
The ‘frenzied’ attack was one of the worst cases encountered by officers and resulted in the largest police investigation in the force’s history.
Sullivan, who was just 29 at the time, first denied murder but later signed a confession.
He quickly retracted the confession and has since raised concerns over whether he had proper legal representation during police interviews.
Sullivan tried twice previously to overturn his guilty verdict, first raising concerns 17 years ago.
It was new tests, ordered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which revealed his DNA did not match semen left on Sindall’s body during the ‘grotesque offence’.
After the conviction was overturned today, Peter’s sister Kim said she was ‘ecstatic’ her brother will be reed.
She added: ‘We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day it’s not just us, Peter hasn’t won and neither has the Sindall family.
‘They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back.
‘We’ve got Peter back and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again.
‘We feel sorry for the Sindall’s and it’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.’
The Crown Prosecution Service told the court they accepted that the DNA findings undermined their original case.
Duncan Atkinson KC said: ‘There is no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed, solely by reference to the DNA evidence.
‘On the contrary, the DNA evidence provides a clear and uncontroverted basis to suggest that another person was responsible for both the sexual assault and the murder.’
Sullivan was interviewed 22 times over four weeks following his arrest for the murder in September 1986.
He was refused legal advice for the first seven interviews despite asking for it.
He ‘confessed to the murder’ in an unrecorded interview a day after his arrest and repeated in a recorded interview, before retracting it later that day.
The CPS acknowledged today that confession did not reflect Sullivan’s earlier interviews.
The successful quashing of Sullivan’s conviction came after a number of failed attempts to persuade judges of his innocence.
Almost two decades before this appeal, Sullivan applied to the CCRC with concerns over DNA evidence in 2008, but forensic experts said a DNA profile was unlikely to be revealed by further testing.
He thenasked the CCRC to re-examine his case in 2021, questioning the police interviews, bite mark evidence and the alleged murder weapon.
Sullivan raised questions again over crucial bite mark evidence to the High Court in 2019, but his attempted appeal was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2021.
He also claimed he had initially been denied legal representation and was not provided with an appropriate adult during interviews.
His lawyer Jason Pitter told the Court of Appeal today that the bite mark was no longer viewed as reliable evidence of identification.
He also said that Sullivan’s confession and other ‘significant admissions’ incriminating statements at the time were ‘inherently unreliable’ due to his ‘vulnerability’ and ‘limited intellectual functioning’.
In court today, the Crown Prosecution Service rejected these other grounds for appeal.
They told the court the way Sullivan was questioned was ‘robust but not more than that’ and said decision to deny him legal representation was in line with guidelines at the time.
Their lawyer said the bite mark evidence should not have been presented to the jury in such ’emphatic’ terms, but there was still circumstantial evidence against Sullivan.
What are the longest miscarriages of justice in British history?
Peter Sullivan’s quashed 38-year conviction means he walks free after the longest miscarriage of justice in British history.
Before today, the 27-year imprisonment of Stephen Downing for the murder of Wendy Sewell held this title.
In 1974, the then 17-year-old was convicted of the murder of 32-year-old Wendy Sewell.
Forensic examination later revealed Downing’s fingerprints were not present on the murder weapon, with attention around the case leading Prime Minister Tony Blair to set up the CCRC to investigate miscarriages of justice.
The independent body found that Downing’s confession was unreliable and should have not gone before a jury. His conviction was overturned in 2001.
As recently as 2023, Andrew Malkinson was freed after spending 17 years in prison for a wrongful conviction of rape.
(Picture: Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)
He was found guilty of the 2003 attack on a woman in Greater Manchester and the following year was jailed for life with a minimum term of seven years.
Mr Malkinson remained in prison for a further 10 because he maintained he was innocent and was cleared at the Court of Appeal two years ago.
Another high profile miscarriage of justice was the conviction of Barry George for the murder of English television presenter Jill Dando in 1999.
The murder brought international attention and a huge police manhunt which led to the arrest and later conviction of George in 2001.
His conviction was overturned after his legal team argued his mental disabilities meant he wasn’t capable of committing the crime.
He was then sensationally acquitted of the crime in 2008.
Merseyside Police detectives are now searching for person behind the DNA profile preserved from the case, as there is no match on the national DNA database.
They said they are ‘committed to doing everything’ to find the perpetrator of the crime.
Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said: ‘Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Diane Sindall who continue to mourn her loss and will have to endure the implications of this new development so many years after her murder.
‘We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor Diane’s fiance at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene.
‘Diane’s murder sent shockwaves through Birkenhead when it happened and I would appeal to anyone who lived in the area at the time, and has any information which could help us with our inquiries, to come forward.’
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