🔗 Share this article

Considering he who's forfeited approximately 40 years of his life because of a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan maintains a unusually positive outlook.

In our conversation last month, for what was his debriefing session since being liberated from prison in May, he was enthusiastic and eagerly anticipating getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the initial occasion since he was taken into custody in 1986.

That was the year of the sexual attack murder of Diane Sindall in his birthplace of Birkenhead - an incident he said he only knew about because someone spoke to him in a pub at the time and said, "apparently there's been a murder".

When he was found guilty the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was destined to a indefinite period in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be hounded by his tabloid nicknames "The Wirral Predator", "Merseyside Killer" and "The Wolfman".

Adjusting to a Transformed World

Ahead of our conversation, he was full of stories about how since his freedom he has had to adjust to a radically changed world.

When he was taken into custody, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, the concept of the internet and Europe was still divided by the Iron Curtain.

He explained watching the collapse of the Berlin Wall from a shared television in prison.

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

Digital Adjustments

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

"Having endured so long in prison and learning 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, 'Goodness, what's going on here?'"

He now has a mobile device, after learning doctor's appointments need to be arranged on something he now knows is called an 'app'.

He first became familiar with them when he was sitting on a bus shortly after his freedom and saw people operating smartphones. He only recognized they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear.

Emotional Consequences

Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in confinement have also led to an unavoidable sense of institutionalisation.

He recalled how after his freedom, one morning in his flat he walked back to his bedroom and positioned himself on his bed, because he was unconsciously waiting for a prison officer to come and lock him back into his cell.

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

"I remained thinking, 'Why am I here?'"

Demanding Closure

But Mr Sullivan's hope is mixed with a desire for answers about how he ended up being charged with an notorious murder that he was innocent of, and a perplexity 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 was absent for them", he said.

"It's impossible to continue with my life if I can't get an response off them."

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

Authorities Position

Merseyside Police said "minimal advantage to be gained for a re-examination of this matter today" because of "developments to investigative techniques and developments in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did submit some of Mr Sullivan's allegations to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now investigate his claims that officers assaulted him and warned to link him to other crimes if he failed to confess 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 regrets that there has been a significant injustice of justice in this case".

Moving Forward

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

"The sole objective to do now is continue with my own life and move forward as I was before, and experience freedom now".

His prospects may be made more manageable by government monetary award, paid to individuals affected of miscarriages of justice.

This program is limited at £1.3m, a limit which it is believed his final compensation will get very near.

But the procedure is not automatic, and it is protracted.

Andrew Malkinson, whose sentence for a rape he had no involvement in was quashed in 2023, was only given an provisional award earlier this year.

Convicted criminals who admit to their crimes and are freed get a housing and some assistance for living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an innocent man, is not qualified for that help.

And so he is surviving a modest life, with his modest ambitions - although many consider he is a compensation recipient.

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