Peter Sullivan murder conviction quashed after 38 years in jail – it would be a mistake to see his case as a bizarre one-off

By Brian Thornton, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, University of Winchester

Peter Sullivan has had his conviction for the murder of Diane Sindall quashed. He is not the Beast of Birkenhead. He is an innocent man who got ensnared in a malfunctioning system that then took 38 years to admit its mistake.

He was wrongly convicted in 1987 for the brutal attack on the part-time pub worker. The 21-year-old was beaten to death and sexually assaulted as she walked home after a shift in Bebington, Merseyside.

Sullivan is now…

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