Man jailed for 1986 murder acquitted after 38 years

Dominic Casciani & Phil McCann

BBC News

Reporting fromRoyal Courts of Justice

Jonny Humphries

BBC News, Liverpool

Peter Sullivan was has spent almost four decades behind bars

Merseyside Police A black-and-white police mugshot of Peter Sullivan, taken in 1986. In the photograph he has black bushy hair and is wearing a woolly coat. — Peter Sullivan was has spent almost four decades behind bars

A man who has served 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan 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 Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – had referred Mr 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.

Mr Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.

Now aged 68, he is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, had said his client agreed the DNA evidence undermined Mr Sullivan’s conviction and there would be no application to seek a retrial.

Judge Lord Justice Holroyde said the evidence “plainly did point to a sexual aspect of the attack on Miss Sindall” and the “inference was very strong” that DNA had belonged to the real killer.

Diane Sindall, 21, had been due to get married

A black-and-white photograph of Diane Sindall, who has her hair cut into a fringe. She is smiling at the camera. — Diane Sindall, 21, had been due to get married

He continued: “There is no evidence to suggest more than one man was involved in the murder, and no evidence to suggest semen may have deposited in the process of consensual sexual activity.”

The judge said he had “no doubt it is necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to admit the evidence of forensic scientists.

“In the light of that evidence it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Miss Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA.

The hearing was told the DNA profile was not a match for Miss Sindall’s fiancé at the time, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.

Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.

More than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.

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