As Peter Sullivan is released from prison as the victim of the biggest miscarriage of justice the UK has seen, the hunt for Diane Sindall’s real killer begins
Jo Wood from RASA Merseyside pictured at Diane Sindall’s memorial in Birkenhead(Image: Colin Lane)
Under trees opposite the Pyramid Shopping Centre in Birkenhead, a small stone memorial has been surrounded by fresh bunches of flowers. On a note attached to a bouquet of red roses, underneath the logo for RASA Merseyside Sexual Violence Services, is a handwritten eight word message – “so sorry Diane, hope you get justice soon”.
Peter Sullivan, now 68, was convicted of murdering and sexually assaulting Diane Sindall in an alleyway in Birkenhead on August 1 1986 and has since languished in a category A prison.
But appearing before the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, May 13, Mr Sullivan had his conviction overturned after new scientific evidence found the presence of a different DNA profile on semen recovered from Ms Sindall’s body.
The quashing of the conviction makes Mr Sullivan, who was 30 at the time of Ms Sindall’s murder, the victim of the longest-running miscarriage of justice affecting a living prisoner in UK history.
Ms Sindall, a florist and part-time bar maid, was a 21-year-old bride-to-be when her life was brutally snatched away on the side of Borough Road in August 1986. The brutal sexual assault and murder, which resulted in some of the most significant injuries one pathologist had ever seen, plunged the area into fear.
Neighbours eyed each other with suspicion, women refused to go out unless they were in groups and young men in the area received knocks on the door from police officers chasing whatever lead they had. The story, where a young woman was defiled by an unknown predator, “had all the ingredients of a horror story”.
Jo Wood was in her mid-20s when the murder happened. Ms Wood, who now lives in Moreton but grew up in Birkenhead, remembers walking along Borough Road to go to-and-from school. Speaking to the ECHO under the trees by Ms Sindall’s memorial, metres away from the graffiti-stained alleyway where the young woman’s body was found, Ms Wood said: “This is the main road to Liverpool.
Diane Sindall memorial in Birkenhead. Photo by Colin Lane(Image: Colin Lane)
“It’s never dead, 40 years ago there would have been less but there would have been traffic. She would have felt safe. I felt safe here. There was never any inkling that you felt unsafe. It’s just truly horrific that this quite beautiful spot had something like that happen.”
When the ECHO visited the estate next to the memorial the afternoon after Mr Sullivan’s conviction was quashed, it was smattered with activity. Neighbours lent over front fences to speak, while parents and their small children played in the park.
It marks a stark difference to the days and weeks after Ms Sindall’s death in the chilly August of 1986. “It was quite a bustling town at the time but it went quiet just like that,” Ms Wood told the ECHO. “You just didn’t see people out on the streets. The fear filtered down to every part of society. What was so scary was this was just a normal area – that was the horror of it.
“No one went out after. If women went out they made sure they were in company. No one felt safe. It was a very difficult time. The whole town was looking at each other. It really destabilised the area and no one felt normal again until the arrest. It was like flipping a switch – after the arrest, the whole town could go out again. That fear went away for 40 years and now it is back.”
The Liverpool ECHO’s frontpage On November 5, 1987. It follows the conviction of Peter Sullivan for the murder of Diane Sindall
Peter Sullivan, now 68, was convicted of murdering and sexually assaulting barmaid and florist Diane Sindall in an alleyway in Birkenhead on August 1, 1986 and has since languished in a category A prison. But appearing before the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, March 13, Mr Sullivan had his conviction overturned after new scientific evidence found the presence of a different DNA profile on semen recovered from Ms Sindall’s body.(Image: British Newspaper Archive/Liverpool ECHO)
John Thompson was a 28-year-old district reporter for the ECHO and the Liverpool Daily Post in the mid-to-late 1980s and wrote more about the murder and subsequent trial than any other story in his career. He told his former paper: “Diane’s horrific rape and murder sent the whole of Wirral into a state of shock and terror.
“This wasn’t a chance encounter that got out of control. This was the premeditated work of a crazed and utterly evil character. The ferocity of the attack elevated it to a crime of rare, horrifying proportion. The terror which swept across the community was heightened by the fact that Diane could have been any woman or girl…if someone could do this, there, to her – well, nobody was safe.
“Husbands, boyfriends, brothers, uncles spent weeks escorting their wives, sisters, girlfriends and nieces to places of work or leisure. No chances were taken. It was too risky. Men would park right outside the doors of shops, offices, pubs and restaurants to make sure the females in their family were dropped off and brought home safe until this killer was caught.
“When Peter Sullivan was arrested two months later and then charged, the community breathed a sigh of relief and life began to return to normal. Surely the police had got their man? Now we can relax again, people thought.”
A local source who lived and worked in the area at the time told the ECHO how he remembered “everyone within the vicinity at the time was questioned”. Recalling a “tense” atmosphere, where the murder was the only topic spoken about, the man added: “Detectives came, my wife said I was at work.
Peter Sullivan pictured after his conviction for the murder of Diane Sindall(Image: Liverpool Echo)
“They said they would return [and] sure enough I had to prove I was in work. I don’t remember DNA, just questions.” The man, who at the time lived around 20 minutes from where the body was found, added: “It’s a shocking state of affairs.”
When the ECHO visited the area this week the topic was back dominating conversation. Cars driving from the Birkenhead Tunnel into the town centre slowed as they passed the memorial, with one woman shouting from her car: “It’s so sad, RIP Diane.”
One mum who lived on the estate told the ECHO she was in her late teens when Ms Sindall was murdered. Walking towards the Pyramid Shopping Centre, the woman, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s all we have been speaking about since we saw the news on the tele.
“I’ve lived around here all my life and I remember when it happened. The area always felt so sinister after the murder. I can’t believe after all these years the police had the wrong person. The real killer could have been in the pub, in the shops around us all this time. It’s scary.”
Fresh floral tributes left at the Diane Sindall memorial(Image: Andrew Teebay)
The prominence of the memorial – and the work that organisations like RASA have done keeping Ms Sindall’s story at the heart of everything they do – means that even those who were too young to remember the event know the story. A 20-year-old Liverpool University student, who asked for her name to not be included, added: “Every time I walk past the memorial I think about what happened.
“It gives me the chills. As a woman I’ve always been told to be careful and watch who I speak to on a night out and to get a taxi back with friends. She was only a few years older than me.”
For Ms Wood, the prospect that the killer has walked free “puts us back into a dark place”. She told the ECHO: “We might have spoken with this person, had discussions with them about what happened, but we don’t know who it is. The police need to find who did this – there is no closure for anyone.”
Diane Sindall memorial in Birkenhead pictured Josephine Wood from RASA Merseyside(Image: Colin Lane)
There wasn’t a seat free inside London’s Royal Courts of Justice courtroom 6 when Mr Sullivan appeared this week. He wasn’t physically in court himself; instead, he watched proceedings from HMP Wakefield.
His counsel, Jason Pitter KC, set out the case, primarily built upon the bombshell evidence that a DNA profile left by the attacker did not match Mr Sullivan. Once the crown’s representative, Duncan Atkinson KC, told the court: “Had this DNA evidence been available, it is difficult to see how the decision would have been made to prosecute,” the decision became a formality.
Lord Justice Holroyde said it was impossible to consider the conviction as safe, Mr Sullivan covered his face and sobbed and his sister, Kim Smith, cried “we’ve done it”. Speaking for the first time via a statement read by his solicitor of over 20 years, Sarah Myatt, Mr Sullivan said: “I am not angry, I am not bitter.”
Screen grab taken from PA Video of (left to right) Mr Justice Goss, Lord Justice Holroyde and Mr Justice Bryan during the hearing for Peter Sullivan at the Court of Appeal, London, where his conviction was quashed. (Image: PA Video/PA Wire)
After this week’s verdict, thoughts naturally return back to the original conviction. Mr Thompson, who covered every minute of the trial, said: “In the community there were people who said that a simple soul like Peter Sullivan did not commit this murder. He couldn’t have done it, many said.
“But at the trial it was just a cliff-hanger moment. Would he be found guilty on this admittedly circumstantial evidence? Or would he walk free? Nobody could guess how it would go. The jury, in a moment of breath-taking tension, then returned a unanimous guilty verdict.”
The ECHO reported earlier this week that RASA, an organisation Ms Wood has been a part of for 20 years, were approached by people in the Birkenhead community who claimed they knew the identity of the real killer – long before Mr Sullivan’s name was officially cleared.
“We got comments from people who said ‘we always knew it wasn’t him at the time’,” Ms Wood said. “But no one was saying something positive and giving us a name…Now, 40 years on, can you just please come forward. Maybe you had loyalties and ties on the estate that you don’t have anyone. Why are you holding back? Someone has already done a double life sentence for what this person has done.”
Diane Sindall was 21 when she was murdered (Image: Diane Sindall family)
Mr Sullivan this week finally shook the shackles of the names he had to endure for close to four decades. He is now approaching his 70th birthday, and will have to pick up the pieces of his life as the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice the UK has ever seen.
Merseyside Police confirmed this week that the force relaunched its investigation in 2023 and have so far eliminated 260 people through DNA sampling as they start from scratch in identifying Ms Sindall’s real killer.
For Ms Wood, the most important thing now is finding justice for Ms Sindall. “How can you rest in peace when your killer is still out there? There is still an opportunity to find this person and hold them to account for what they’ve done.”
Mr Thompson finished: “I, like everyone else, can only hope that the real beast who stole Diane’s life, if he is still walking this earth, is caught or identified very soon. If so, it will be 38 years too late. But even now, better late than never.”