Peter Sullivan was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall
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00:00a man who spent 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman in 1986 has had his conviction
00:07quashed at the court of appeal peter sullivan who was 30 when he was sentenced and is now 68
00:14is believed to be the uk's longest serving victim of a miscarriage of justice after three senior
00:20judges quashed his conviction for the killing diane sindle a 21 year old barmaid was found
00:25dead in bebbington in august 1986 when mr sullivan arrested the following month and convicted in
00:31november of that year he remained behind bars despite being given a minimum term of 16 years
00:37he first tried to challenge his conviction in 2008 with the criminal cases review commission declining
00:44to refer the case to the court of appeal before he lost his own appeal bid in 2019 he asked again the
00:51commission to refer his case in 2021 and it was found that dna samples taken from the scene did
00:57not match mr sullivan on tuesday three senior judges quashed his conviction after his case was referred
01:03to the court of appeal by the criminal cases review commission following the new dna evidence at the
01:09time of diane's murder dna was very much in its infancy and this vital evidence was not available to
01:16the original investigation team midside police confirmed that 260 men have been eliminated from
01:22the inquiry since it was reopened in 2023 and that none of miss sindle's loved ones are implicated
01:28the court heard that an unknown man called police after the murder to say he'd stolen
01:33and burned her clothes but he later retracted the account and the information was discounted because
01:39of bite mark evidence gathered as part of the prosecution