Peter Sullivan who has spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed

https://news.sky.com/story/peter-sullivan-who-has-spent-38-years-in-jail-for-murder-has-conviction-quashed-13363928

by topotaul

49 comments

  1. Awful.

    This is one of the many reasons I’m against the death penalty, this is one of the convictions that would have people baying for blood.

  2. 38 years in jail. Longest miscarriage of justice for an overturned conviction I think.

    So the real killer got away with it.

  3. Well, that sucks. Would’ve been 30 at the time he went in. He’s 68 now.

  4. And it will be extremely difficult for him to get compensation, because the government changed the law regarding compensation so that you now have to prove your innocence beyond reasonable doubt (rather than just showing that the government can’t prove your guilt) in order to be entitled to compensation for wrongful imprisonment, which is an almost impossible threshold to meet.

    They changed the law because they didn’t want to pay compensation to people who got their convictions quashed on technicalities.

    The maximum compensation wrongfully imprisoned people can get is £1 million, so that’s about 26K a year (they don’t deduct the prison’s expenses from it anymore at least).

  5. He’s spent well over 1/2 of his life in prison. 

    BBC news said that the DNA processing test freed him was only invented in 2015, but still, it seems bizarre how cases like this take *so* long to get tested. 

  6. Man being locked up for something I didn’t do is my worst fear. Sitting in prison day in day out knowing you’re innocent would be absolute torture.

    Hope he gets a fat sum of cash, but that bullshit law change will make it difficult.

    Should automatically be entitled to a lump sum without you having to do anything if you spend that much time locked up for a crime you didn’t commit.

  7. Well over half his life lost, all the best years he can never get back. I hope any compensation is fast tracked as at 68 he should not have to begin another battle for justice.

  8. “At the time of Mr Sullivan’s trial in 1987, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests had been refused.” Why would you not work just as hard to prove someone’s innocence as their guilt !

  9. Just cruel and arguably worse than the death penalty, he gets his deserved freedom but at retirement age.

    The healthiest and fittest years of his life are long gone and even with a settlement of millions, what does that actually give him with his remaining years?

  10. Jesus christ, he should be due millions given his innocence.

  11. You just can’t imagine it. Banged up in a Cat A for 38 years for a crime you never commited and nobody believes you.

    Absolutely horrific.

  12. Jesus, what do you even do at this point? That’s your whole life gone, for something you didn’t do.

  13. I hope he sues. He is already entitled to at least 1 mill quid for being in prison for 10 years on a wrongful conviction. Could use that to sue the government to get compensation etc. Would be deserved for 30+ years for being wrongfully imprisoned.

  14. Misread the headline as Peter Sutcliffe and thought “huge if true”.

  15. He was 29 when he was locked up and is now pretty much a 70 year old. His entire life has been wasted because of a false conviction and what was probably a forced confession. And any family he has/had might have been shunning him all this time as well.

    The lady who was raped and murdered is a victim of the criminal who did it and this bloke is a victim of the people who are supposed to protect us.

  16. Scumbag police, depriving a mentally-handicapped man of a lawyer despite his requests while they tortured a false confession out of him

  17. The state really, really, REALLY has an issue admitting mistakes. The coppers, CPS, and judge who stole this man’s life need to at the very least pay compensation and lose any pensions.

  18. “Should we have the death penalty?”

    No, and this is why

  19. The absolute number one reason why everyone should be against the death penalty.

    You don’t judge it purely based on the real scumbags who definitely did the crime they were accused of (and, being honest, probably deserve the long drop and quick stop), you have to consider the consequences for cases like this.

  20. Interesting that Goss, who presided over the Letby trial, was one of the three judges sitting on this ruling.

    >That original investigation was the largest in the force’s history

    I suspect miscarriages of justice might be more common after investigations that are “too big to fail.”

  21. Jesus what a horrific thing. I wonder if either of his parents are still alive, I would hope they didn’t die thinking he was a murderer. Just awful. The victim and this man were failed tremendously.

  22. Several awful things about this case.

    Firstly he was suspected because he was a “loner” which seems to be a common police operating procedure. Find the oddball and pressure them into a confession so you can close the case and move on.

    Secondly he was convicted based on “bite mark analysis” which was always pseudoscience and whose main promoter should have been in prison themselves for profiting off fraud.

  23. This happens probably more often than people would like to admit. High profile cases where they intimidate a mentally ill person into a confession to get the press/community to calm down.

  24. I wish for the peace he has in himself to not be bitter or resentful.

  25. Poor bloke, hope he gets millions in compensation. Life in tatters

  26. This sort of shit gives me the Chills. Just goes to show if the police finger you for the crime you are up against the whole state.

    Makes me doubt loads of cases based on hearsay.

  27. That’s terribly sad, he’s not angry or bitter… better man than me. His life was stolen. I hope he is somehow compensated and justice happens for the lady who was murdered.

  28. Denied legal representation. Denied an appropriate adult. And Merseyside Police pull puppy dog eyes and wonder why everyone hates them. It’s shit like this.

  29. Minimum term 16 years; served 38. I wonder if the main reason he was denied parole was because he maintained his innocence?

  30. >In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.

    >The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

    How on earth you have that composure and empathy after going through this is beyond me. He’s stronger than I am.

  31. What is astounding in this case is DNA samples were taken and preserved. Yet, despite that, no one involved in the appeals process thought to have those samples cross checked with the appellant.

    The cynical might say there is a presumed bias in the CCRC when it comes to guilt or innocence, which doesn’t favour the latter of these.

    How many more if these cases are out there?

  32. The police conduct in this case really needs to be examined. What did they do to him, to get him to confess to a crime he did not commit, whilst allowing the real criminal to escape. Yet another example of the British police’s love of a fit-up….

  33. Makes me feel real confident in the UK justice system.

  34. As mad as it sounds I was half hoping he was guilty so he didn’t waste his life behind bars for nothing. I’m delighted he’s getting out but it really is a shock that he’s been away for so long for no reason. I hope he lives to a good age and gets to catch up on what he’s missed. 38 years is a long time.

  35. Oh ffs. That’s awful. I mean, fantastic he’s out, but 38 years in a cage for something you didn’t do…

  36. And? What of the people who forced a confession out of him? Will they be put on trial?

  37. Poor cunt gets out at 68, all his best years wasted being stuck in jail. Imagine how that must feel knowing you’re innocent but no one believes you. Labelled a monster for years, then get out at 68 with no wife, kids, career – just an old man, it’s horrible. If he writes a book I’ll buy it!

    All the best Peter Sullivan

  38. Often with cases like this, the breakthrough seems to take evidence which “could not have been known at the time”. Conveniently, that means nobody in the system has to be held accountable. What’s worrying is he was partially convicted based on bite marks, which is a complete pseudoscience that had been allowed to stand for 38 years. You can find these convictions where the science or evidence used is obviously bunk, but that isn’t enough to actually get the court to change its mind due to fresh evidence requirements.

  39. It said he was sentenced to 16 years. Why did he stay in for so long?

  40. He’s 68 now, There should be a scheme to make sure people like this are guaranteed a comfortable life after they are released, at the very least he should be exempt from all kinds of tax, he should be given a decent home for free by the government and have all maintenance costs and utility bills covered by the government and given a yearly stipend of at least 100k to try and make up for his life being stolen from him but unfortunately nothing like this exists and he will probably get nothing

  41. Reading about this case now I am horrified.

    He was a vulnerable person, with “limited intellectual functioning, combined with his problems with self expression, his disposition to acquiesce, to yield, to be influenced, manipulated and controlled, and his internal pressure to speak without reflection”…and the police denied him any legal representation or an appropriate adult with him when he was interrogated?

    The police involved in this should imo, if still alive, be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice. The whole case should never have happened. The police deliberately picked on a vulnerable person who could not defend themselves in the legal system and (probably knowingly) stitched him up just to say they got someone, knowing the actual perpetrator walked free.

    he also claimed his “confession” was after being assaulted and abused by officers. And the “confession” was not recorded.

    the entire “evidence” seems to have been “he owned a crowbar” and “he was said to have been in the are, but witnesses failed to pick him out in an identification process”.

    For all the people who question why we have to be open to re-examining cases, even in current high profile case, this is why. because in another 38years I dont want someone else to have been put in the same position of their life being destroyed by the state.

  42. If a prisoner is past their minimum term for a life sentence and is being denied parole on the basis that they refuse to admit the offence, that should automatically trigger a full review of the case. If someone has consistently protested their innocence and is continuing to do so despite it preventing their release, in all likelihood they are innocent.

  44. Miscarriage of justice. Just so glad he’s out and free now.

    No closure for anyone in this case.

  45. They should look at Robert Maudsley next – he has been in solitary confinement since 1983 ! – 42 years ! He is only allowed out of his cell for 1 hour a day. That is as equally inhumane.

  46. Can we say thank you to the lawyer who was on this case for 20 freaking years, Sarah Myatt,

  47. It just seems that we really think with every crime we can find perpetrator and if not, we go with the sort of roundabout best bet, because how could someone evade detection? The quotes in this article about ‘the guy still being out there’, well yeah, and many others. The Letby trial, whether we want to admit it or not, is shining a light on basically us as a society being happy with locking someone up for life based on nothing absolutely concrete. We’re happier locking up a potentially innocent person than letting a killer go free.

    It’s one of my nightmares being accused of something i haven’t done, it’d be beyond frustrating, you’d fret about every decision, your defence, whether you stand in court, how you answer, just everything. I’m sure if Letby is innocent she’s thinking ‘why did i leave those notes left to be found? Why?’ You grow up (or i did) thinking the truth and honesty is the best way with the police, i’d always think ‘why are you evading this?’ The phrase ‘i have nothing to hide’. I trust people, strangers, but when it comes to others seeing things from your point of view, putting themselves in your shoes, we are really weak at it. I watched the film River recently (on Prime), about a doctor who kills a guy in Laos after he caught him sexually assaulting a woman. The doctor flees, he doesn’t try to explain, he didn’t mean to kill the guy, it was self defence.

  48. At this point, he might as well go all ‘Law Abiding Citizen’ on everyone that helped put him away.

  49. Yet more evidence that the state does not always get it right, and the death penalty is completely obsolete in modern times.

    38 years in prison for one of the worst crimes imaginable, and you are innocent, how do you keep going?

    Also; the poor girl who was raped and murdered still doesn’t have justice.

    What an awful case all round.

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