Man jailed for 1986 murder acquitted after 38 years
Murder conviction quashed
Peter Sullivan spent more than 38 years in jail in what is believed to be the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.
A man who has served almost 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday after new DNA evidence emerged.
Peter Sullivan, now 68, was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.
The murder of Sindall sparked the biggest manhunt Merseyside had ever seen.
But Sullivan and his defence team long insisted the police had got the wrong man and lawyers have tried twice before to get his conviction overturned.
In a statement read by his lawyer Sarah Myatt outside the court on his behalf, Sullivan said too many horrors had been inflicted on him to detail.
“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free,” he said. “It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale. As we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me, I am not angry, I am not bitter. I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”
Quashing the conviction, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Justice Goss and Justice Bryan, said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”
Sullivan, who attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield, listened to the ruling with his head down and arms folded, and appeared to weep and put his hand to his mouth as his conviction was quashed.
As the judgment was read out, his sister Kim Smith tearfully declared: “We’ve done it.”
Outside court, she said: “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.”
New investigation
Merseyside police said the crucial DNA evidence was not available during the original investigation and officers were now “committed to doing everything” to find the person whose DNA was left at the scene where Diane Sindall died.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice - had referred Sullivan's case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.
Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.
The DNA profile was not a match for Sindall's fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.
Merseyside Police has since reopened its investigation into Sindall's murder, but the force said searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.
Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.
"We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway," she said.
"We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane's family, nor Diane's fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene."
Long battle
Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.
He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.
Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances, it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.
Sullivan's defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.
Peter Sullivan, now 68, was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.
The murder of Sindall sparked the biggest manhunt Merseyside had ever seen.
But Sullivan and his defence team long insisted the police had got the wrong man and lawyers have tried twice before to get his conviction overturned.
In a statement read by his lawyer Sarah Myatt outside the court on his behalf, Sullivan said too many horrors had been inflicted on him to detail.
“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free,” he said. “It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale. As we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me, I am not angry, I am not bitter. I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”
Quashing the conviction, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Justice Goss and Justice Bryan, said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”
Sullivan, who attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield, listened to the ruling with his head down and arms folded, and appeared to weep and put his hand to his mouth as his conviction was quashed.
As the judgment was read out, his sister Kim Smith tearfully declared: “We’ve done it.”
Outside court, she said: “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.”
New investigation
Merseyside police said the crucial DNA evidence was not available during the original investigation and officers were now “committed to doing everything” to find the person whose DNA was left at the scene where Diane Sindall died.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice - had referred Sullivan's case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.
Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.
The DNA profile was not a match for Sindall's fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.
Merseyside Police has since reopened its investigation into Sindall's murder, but the force said searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.
Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.
"We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway," she said.
"We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane's family, nor Diane's fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene."
Long battle
Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.
He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.
Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances, it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.
Sullivan's defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.
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