The Memo: Murder conviction quashed after 38 years in prison

In 1986, 21-year-old Diane Sindall was murdered after being subjected to a sexual attack in Birkenhead. The police investigation at the time led to the arrest and subsequent conviction of Peter Sullivan for the crime. Now, after spending 38 years in prison, Sullivan’s conviction has been overturned thanks to new DNA evidence from the scene of the crime. 

Technology has advanced since the original conviction, so semen samples collected from the original crime scene have now been tested, and Sullivan has been ruled out as perpetrator of the crime. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is the statutory body responsible for investigating potential miscarriages of justice, and it referred the case back to the Court of Appeal in November 2024, after a new DNA profile found during fresh testing of the evidence pointed to an unknown attacker. The police reopened their investigation into the murder in February, ahead of the full hearing which concluded on 13 May.  

At the time of the original investigation, officers arrested Sullivan because witnesses said they had seen a man matching his description running out of bushes at Bidston Hill, where some of Sindall’s clothes had been found burning in a small fire. Sullivan confessed to the murder, before withdrawing his confession later that day. He had been denied legal advice before this point, with the police making the decision to withdraw this because they felt it may have caused a “hindrance to the enquiry.” After receiving legal advice, Sullivan retracted his confessions and told the police he made them up. These confessions were mentioned at trial, alongside claims from dental experts that bite marks on the body could be matched to Sullivan’s teeth. He was given a life sentence for murder, labelled by newspapers at “the Beast of Birkenhead” and “the Mersey Ripper.” 

Sullivan spent 38 years, seven months and 21 days in custody following his arrest, which includes time spent in custody on remand and serving his life sentence. After a total of 14,113 days in custody, now 68-year-old Peter Sullivan has been released from prison following what is thought to be the UK’s longest-running miscarriage of justice.