A 68-year-old man who has spent 38 years in jail has had his murder conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal in what is thought to be the longest-running miscarriage of justice in British history.
Peter Sullivan was wrongly convicted in 1987 for the frenzied murder of florist and part-time pub worker Diane Sindall, 21, who was killed as she left work in Bebington, Merseyside. It was alleged that in August 1986, Sullivan had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match and went out armed with a crowbar before a chance encounter with Sindall.
New DNA tests ordered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission revealed that Sullivan's DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time. Duncan Atkinson KC, for the Crown Prosecution Service, told the court that analysis showed the DNA came from an 'unknown male one', and that it was 'one billion times more likely that the sample originated from unknown male one, rather than someone else'.
Quashing the conviction, Lord Justice Holroyde said: 'In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant's conviction as safe.' Sullivan, who attended via video link from HMP Wakefield, appeared to weep as his conviction was quashed.
Outside court, Sullivan's sister Kim Smith said: 'We lost Peter for 39 years and at the end of the day it's not just us, Peter hasn't won and neither has the Sindall family. They've lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back.'
Merseyside Police said the crucial DNA evidence was not available during the original investigation and officers are now committed to finding the person whose DNA was left at the scene. Detective Chief Superintendent Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men had been screened and eliminated since the investigation was reopened in 2023, but there is no match on the national DNA database.
