🔗 Share this article

For someone who's forfeited approximately 40 years of his life because of a crime he didn't commit, Peter Sullivan strikes a remarkably positive outlook.

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

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

When he was sentenced the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was condemned to a indefinite period in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be tormented by his tabloid nicknames "The Beast of Birkenhead", "River Mersey Murderer" and "Lunar Killer".

Adjusting to a Digital World

Before our interview, he was rich with anecdotes about how since his freedom 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 collapse of the Berlin Wall from a communal television in prison.

Mr Sullivan told me how trips to the shops now show how "society has evolved" - from trying to understand how self-checkouts operate to realising that "in place of having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone".

Technological Adjustments

His imprisonment means he has been unaware of the way so many aspects of everyday life have transformed - similar to someone who has been in hibernation since the 1980s.

"After spending so long in prison and finding out there's no DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security, now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)] where you can collect your money - you're thinking, 'Wow, what's going on here?'"

He now has a digital phone, after learning doctor's appointments need to be booked on something he now knows is called an 'mobile program'.

He first became familiar with them when he was riding on a bus shortly after his release and saw people using smartphones. He only realised they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear.

Emotional Impact

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

He described how after his liberation, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and positioned himself on his bed, because he was unconsciously waiting for a prison officer to come and confine him into his cell.

"It's required to be at your door at a designated moment, otherwise the officers will go off at you", he said.

"I found myself thinking, 'Why am I here?'"

Demanding Explanation

But Mr Sullivan's optimism is tempered by a yearning for answers about how he came to be charged with an notorious murder that he didn't commit, and a bewilderment about why he still has not had an admission of error.

"I've lost everything", he said.

"My liberty was taken, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.

"It hurts because I couldn't be present for them", he said.

"I cannot proceed with my life if I can't get an response off them."

"My only request, an apology [and to understand] the cause behind they've done this to me", he said.

Law Enforcement Response

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

The force did refer 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 physically abused him and threatened to link him to other crimes if he failed to confess to Diane Sindall's murder.

When asked if it would apologise, the force did not clearly address the question, but as part of a comprehensive declaration it said: "The force recognizes that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice in this case".

Looking Ahead

Mr Sullivan told me about his modest ambition - 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 progress as I was before, and enjoy my remaining years now".

His life ahead may be made less challenging by government monetary award, paid to wrongly convicted people of miscarriages of justice.

This scheme is capped at £1.3m, a cap which it is believed his eventual payout will get very approach.

But the process is not guaranteed, and it is time-consuming.

Andrew Malkinson, whose guilty verdict for a rape he did not commit was dismissed in 2023, was only granted an temporary payment earlier this year.

Guilty prisoners who acknowledge their crimes and are freed get a housing and some support regarding living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an innocent man, is not entitled to that help.

And so he is surviving a basic lifestyle, with his modest ambitions - although many think he is a compensation recipient.

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