Who is Peter Sullivan?

13 May 2025, 14:48 | Updated: 13 May 2025, 14:52

A man who has been in prison for murder since the late 1980s has seen his conviction quashed.

Peter Sullivan is now considered to be the UK’s longest-serving victim of a miscarriage of justice after the Court of Appeal ruled in his favour on Tuesday.

Lawyers for Mr Sullivan told the London court that new evidence showed that the killer of Diane Sindall in 1986 “was not the defendant” and barristers for the Crown Prosecution Service agreed, stating there was “no credible basis on which the appeal can be opposed”.

“In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe,” said Lord Justice Holroyde, who led the hearing alongside Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan.

After hearing the verdict Mr Sullivan, who attended the hearing via video link from HMP Wakefield, appeared to weep while a relative in court was also in tears.

A statement from his counsel read: "What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

"The truth shall set you free."

Who is Peter Sullivan?

Sullivan, now 68, has been in prison since he was 30 after being convicted of killing Diane Sindall, a 21-year-old part time barmaid, in August 1986.

Miss Sindall, who also worked as a florist, was brutally killed after she left her bar job in Bebington, Merseyside. Her florist van had broken down on her way home and she was walking to a petrol station when she was beaten to death and sexually assaulted. Her body was left partially clothed and mutilated.

It was alleged that Mr Sullivan had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match, and went out armed with a crowbar before a chance encounter with Miss Sindall.

He was convicted of her murder in November 1987 and given a minimum term of 17 years but has remained in prison ever since.

In 2008 he attempted to challenge his conviction but the Criminal Cases Review Commission did not refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

Mr Sullivan then appealed in 2019 over bite mark evidence but this was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2021.

How did the conviction get overturned?

The Criminal Cases Review Commission found that semen samples from the crime scene did not match those of Mr Sullivan and pushed last year for the Court of Appeal to reevaluate.

Technology allowing the DNA to be extracted from semen within an abdomen has only relatively recently become available as a mode of investigation.

Lord Justice Holroyde said at Tuesday’s hearing that there is “no doubt that it is both necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to accept the new DNA evidence.

After the ruling Merseyside Police said vital DNA evidence had not been available during the original investigation.

It means that a person whose DNA was left at the scene remains at large and has not been brought to justice over the murder.

The sample does not belong to anyone in Ms Sindall’s family or her then fiance.

What will happen now?

Mr Sullivan has been acquitted and will now be released.

Merseyside Police is set to continue its search for Ms Sindall’s murderer and has been looking into potential DNA matches but is yet to find anything.

DCS Karen Jaundrill, of the force, said: “Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of Diane Sindall who continue to mourn her loss and will have to endure the implications of this new development so many years after her murder.

“We are committed to doing everything within our power to find whom the DNA, which was left at the scene, belongs to.”