A man who spent nearly four decades in a British prison in the killing of a barmaid said he was not angry or bitter Tuesday as his murder conviction was overturned and he was released after being exonerated by DNA evidence. Peter Sullivan put his hand over his mouth and wept as the Court of Appeal in London quashed his conviction and ordered his freedom after he had spent years fighting to prove his innocence, the AP reports. Sullivan, 68, was convicted in 1987 of killing Diane Sindall in Birkenhead, near Liverpool in northwest England. He was behind bars for 38 years.
Sindall, a 21-year-old florist who was engaged to be married, was returning home from a part-time job at a pub on a Friday night in August 1986 when her van ran out of fuel, police said. She was last seen walking along the road after midnight. Her body was found about 12 hours later in an alley. She had been sexually assaulted and badly beaten. Sexual fluid found on Sindall's body could not be scientifically analyzed until recently. A test in 2024 revealed it wasn't Sullivan's, defense attorney Jason Pitter said. Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson did not challenge the appeal and said that if the DNA evidence had been available at the time of the investigation it was inconceivable that Sullivan would have been prosecuted.
- Merseyside Police said it reopened the investigation as the appeal was underway and was "committed to doing everything" to find the killer. Police said the DNA does not match anyone in a national database. They've ruled out as suspects Sindall's fiancé, members of her family, and more than 260 men who have been screened since they reopened the investigation.
- The BBC reports that Sullivan was released from prison 38 years, seven months, and 21 days after his arrest. He spent a total of 14,113 days in custody in what is believed to be the UK's longest-ever miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner.
- "He is incapable of something like this, and finding him guilty makes a farce out of British justice," Sullivan's mother told the Liverpool Echo in 1987. "Peter cannot believe it has happened to him,' she said. "He had everything he wanted—a wife, which he never thought he would have, and a little boy. He has counted down the days to his trial, saying he will be glad when it is over because he will be coming home."
- Sullivan, who watched the hearing by video from Wakefield prison in northern England, said through his lawyer that he was not resentful and was anxious to see his loved ones. "As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free," attorney Sarah Myatt read from a statement outside court. "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."
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