🔗 Share this article

For someone who's lost approximately 40 years of his life because of a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan strikes a unusually optimistic outlook.

In our conversation last month, for what was his first interview since being released from prison in May, he was cheerful and excited about getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the first time since he was detained in 1986.

That was the year of the violent killing of Diane Sindall in his birthplace of Birkenhead - an incident he said he had limited information regarding because someone approached him in a pub at the time and said, "allegedly there's been a murder".

When he was sentenced the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was destined to a extended term in some of Britain's highest-security category A prisons where he would be tormented by his tabloid nicknames "Birkenhead's Monster", "The Mersey Ripper" and "Nocturnal Predator".

Adapting to a Modern World

Prior to our discussion, he was full of stories about how since his exoneration he has had to acclimate to a radically changed world.

When he was arrested, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, no one had heard of the internet and Europe was still partitioned by the Iron Curtain.

He recalled watching the demolition of the Berlin Wall from a public television in prison.

Mr Sullivan described how trips to the shops now show how "society has evolved" - from trying to figure out how self-checkouts work to realising that "rather than having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone".

Digital Adjustments

His imprisonment means he has been ignorant of the way so many elements of everyday life have transformed - similar to someone who has been asleep since the 1980s.

"Having endured so long in prison and discovering there's no DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security, now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)] where you can receive your money - you're thinking, 'Amazing, what's going on here?'"

He now has a mobile device, after discovering doctor's appointments need to be booked on something he now knows is called an 'application'.

He first became acquainted with them when he was traveling on a bus shortly after his liberation and saw people twiddling with smartphones. He only understood they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear.

Psychological Effects

Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in custody have also led to an inevitable sense of prison conditioning.

He described how after his liberation, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and settled on his bed, because he was automatically waiting for a prison officer to come and lock him back into his cell.

"You must be at your door at a certain time, otherwise the officers will go off at you", he said.

"I was just sitting there thinking, 'Why am I here?'"

Desiring Answers

But Mr Sullivan's optimism is tempered by a yearning for answers about how he was charged with an infamous murder that he had no part in, and a perplexity about why he still has not had an expression of regret.

"I've lost everything", he said.

"Freedom disappeared, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.

"The pain is deep because I wasn't there for them", he said.

"I can't carry on with my life if I can't get an response off them."

"That's all I want, an apology [and to understand] the explanation for they've done this to me", he said.

Law Enforcement Response

Merseyside Police said "limited value to be gained for a reassessment of this matter today" because of "the changes to investigative techniques and developments in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did forward some of Mr Sullivan's allegations to the police oversight body, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now examine his claims that officers beat him up and warned to link him to other crimes if he didn't plead guilty to Diane Sindall's murder.

When asked if it would issue an apology, the force did not clearly address the question, but as part of a lengthy statement it said: "The force acknowledges that there has been a serious failure of justice in this case".

Moving Forward

Mr Sullivan shared about his simple goal - an ambition that he said he had abandoned expectation of being able to accomplish at some points over his approximately 38 years behind bars.

"My only desire to do now is get on with my own life and move forward as I was before, and live my time out now".

His prospects may be made easier by government monetary award, paid to individuals affected of wrongful convictions.

This scheme is restricted at £1.3m, a limit which it is believed his eventual payout will get very near.

But the system is not guaranteed, and it is lengthy.

Andrew Malkinson, whose sentence for a rape he did not commit was quashed in 2023, was only granted an provisional award earlier this year.

Convicted criminals who confess to their crimes and are paroled get a place to live and some help with living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an innocent man, is not eligible for that help.

And so he is living a simple existence, with his modest ambitions - although many consider he is a future wealthy man.

His lawyer, Sarah Myatt, said "no amount that you could say that would be enough for losing 38 years of your life".