'My brother was locked up for a crime he didn't commit'

On the morning of 23 September 1986, Peter Sullivan was arrested on suspicion of murder and taken into custody for questioning.

Seven weeks earlier, Diane Sindall had been subjected to a frenzied sexual attack and brutally killed in Birkenhead.

Her partially clothed body was found by a dogwalker in an alleyway off Borough Road on 2 August 1986, sparking one of the biggest manhunts in Merseyside Police history.

Peter was the primary suspect and went on to spend 38 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder.

"I asked him clearly, 'Did you have anything to do with this'?" said his brother David Sullivan about a brief conversation they had while he was at the police station.

"And sharp as a nail, he said, 'I haven't done any of it, I've been nowhere near her'.

"From there, it snowballed and it spiralled for him, and it just got way out of hand."

David recalls that, from the outset, there were doubts about the case against his brother.

"While he was down there, apparently there was another couple that came to the police station and said 'We've just seen the fella [responsible] outside'," he said.

"They said, 'Impossible - we've still got him in here'. They never listened to the people."

The family faced a backlash from the community after Peter was charged.

"My mother's home was broken into whilst we were actually in a courtroom," said David, who was 24 years old when the case went to trial.

"There were cars that were vandalised and graffiti written all over them, which were parked outside the house."

Court documents reveal how Peter broke down in tears under questioning and "confessed" to the murder but he later retracted his confessions and told police he had made them up.

"Peter was forgetful. He can't remember what he had said 10 minutes ago, he would've forgotten," said his brother.

"He always gave mixed accounts of what he'd been doing, where he was going."

Peter's trial in 1987 was told about his apparent confessions, as well as claims from dental experts that bite marks on Diane Sindall's body could be matched to his teeth.

He was found guilty following an eight-week trial and spent the best part of four decades behind bars.

He always insisted that police had got the wrong man.

Decades later, Peter and his family were given the news they had always hoped for.

The case would be reviewed after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

In May 2025, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.

Peter is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

David said: "We can say we've got our brother back, but we haven't. We've got what we've got back - as an older version of my brother, and the rest of us have lost from 29 to 68.

"We've all missed out on those 40 years that he's been locked up."

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating complaints linked to the Merseyside Police investigation that led to Peter being wrongfully convicted of murder.

Merseyside Police said: "The 1986 investigation was conducted nearly 40 years ago, and it is very difficult to comment on investigative practices at that time, when seen through the lens of today.

"We understand the detrimental impact the conviction has had on the life of Mr Sullivan and do not underestimate the significance of being imprisoned for 38 years on his wellbeing.

"We are doing everything we can to find out who the new DNA evidence, which formed the basis of his release, belongs to."

In The Beast of Birkenhead podcast, which was produced by Kate Bissell and Gemma Maull, journalist Olivia Graham returns to the community where the victim lived and where she was murdered.

She speaks to people who still remember the shock and fear that swept the town, and the whispered doubts that the police had arrested the wrong man.

• Watch the trailer for Crime Next Door: The Beast of Birkenhead

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