Peter Sullivan tells BBC: ‘I was intimidated into confessing to a fake murder’

The 38-year-old victim of a miscarriage of justice has claimed he was beaten by police officers and “bullied” into falsely admitting the murder, in his first interview since his release.

Peter Sullivan told the BBC he believes he was “stitched” by the 1986 murder of Diane Sindall, who was ambushed and bludgeoned to death during a frenzied sex attack in Birkenhead, Wirral.

The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of Mr Sullivan, who has learning difficulties, in May after new DNA testing was carried out.

He now wants an apology from Merseyside Police. The force said that while it “regretted” that a “serious miscarriage of justice” had occurred, it maintained its officers acted within the law at the time.

Speaking from an undisclosed location and with his face hidden to protect his privacy, Sullivan said he wanted an explanation for why detectives “picked me.”

“I can’t forgive them for what they’ve done to me, because it will be there for the rest of my life,” he said, adding that he had “lost everything” since he went to prison.

“I have to carry that burden until I can get an apology.”

For decades, Sullivan and his family were dogged by tabloid nicknames, including “The Beast of Birkenhead,” “The Mersey Ripper” and “The Wolfman.”

“I will always remember the names because I have never been anything like that,” he said.

Sullivan said that despite moments of near hopelessness, he always had the support of his parents, who died years before he could clear his name.

He said: “My mother turned to me before she died and said, ‘I want you to keep fighting this case because you haven’t done anything wrong.’

In one of the many painful moments of her time behind bars, Sullivan said she was refused permission to attend her mother’s funeral in 2013 because she was buried in the same cemetery as Miss Sindall.

Her ordeal began after the half-naked body of 21-year-old flower girl Miss Sindall was found with catastrophic injuries in an alleyway on Borough Road, Birkenhead, on August 2, 1986.

Two weeks later, her partially burned clothes were found in Bidston Hill, a large wooded area about an hour’s walk from the alley.

After a BBC Crimewatch appeal was broadcast, witnesses came forward who claimed to have seen Mr Sullivan in a pub near the crime scene that night, while others reported seeing a man matching his description near Bidston Hill the following day.

He was arrested on suspicion of murder on September 23, 1986, and interviewed 22 times over the following four weeks.

During the first seven interviews, he was denied legal advice and found the experience “very discouraging.”

“They would put things in my head, then they would send me back to my cell, then I would come back and say what they wanted, without realizing what I was doing at the time,” he said.

During that period, Mr. Sullivan claimed that police officers beat him in his cell on two occasions.

“They threw a blanket over me and hit me on top of the blanket with batons to try to get me to cooperate with them,” he said.

“It hurt me a lot, they were bothering me.”

Sullivan also claimed that he was told that if he did not confess he would be charged with “35 other rapes” and that he was denied food and sleep.

He was not provided with a suitable adult to help him understand the interrogation, despite police custody records indicating he had learning difficulties.

When asked why he would confess to a murder he did not commit, Sullivan said, “All I can say is that it was the harassment that forced me to get involved, because I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Appeal court documents confirm that the first time he “confessed” was not recorded and no lawyer was present. Other interviews were recorded.

In a statement for this article, Merseyside Police said it was not aware of any allegations of beatings or threats to charge him with other crimes, and said records from the time contained no details about them. He said guidance on appropriate adults had been strengthened since 1986.

Police accepted that legal advice was initially denied for the interviews, adding that officers were afraid to reveal parts of the investigation to a lawyer, in case evidence was destroyed. He also said Mr. Sullivan was told he did not have to talk to officers unless he wanted to.

Sarah Myatt, Sullivan’s lawyer for more than 20 years, sat next to him as he spoke to the BBC. “I think from what he told me, he reached his breaking point,” she said.

Sullivan said during an interview that he was asked to mark on a map where he had left the clothes in Bidston Hill. When he pointed to the wrong location, he alleges that a detective responded, “Come on, Peter, you know better,” before hinting at the “correct” location.

Ms Myatt said that on the Bidston Hill maps, Mr Sullivan had later written “this is all a lie”.

“I think that’s pretty moving,” he said.

Merseyside Police said the maps and transcripts, which the BBC has not seen, were handed over to the courts. The force said officers who interviewed him had been “trying to understand the validity of his confessions”.

While Sullivan later recanted his confessions, police and prosecutors also relied on bite mark evidence, a now widely discredited field of forensic science.

That case, brought before DNA evidence was widely available, was enough to convince a Liverpool Crown Court jury, and on November 5, 1987 he went from a confessed “petty thief” to a convicted murderer.

Recalling the guilty verdicts, Sullivan said, “My sister collapsed in the courtroom and the next minute, that was it.

“They took me out of the courtroom and I sat in that cell and cried my eyes out for the crime I hadn’t committed.

“I knew from then on that this was going to be an incredible case to try to fight to try to get out of this situation.”

His sentence carried a minimum sentence of 16 years before he could apply for parole, but Sullivan maintained his innocence, which reduced his chances of release.

Prison was particularly difficult for someone considered a savage murderer and sex offender. “I have been beaten in prisons for the crime I committed,” he said.

However, he said that reporting that type of violence was not an option because “then you’re a weed, and that means you’re going to get a lot worse.”

The end of her nightmare began in 2023, when the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body created to check miscarriages of justice, ordered new tests of semen samples found on Miss Sindall’s body in 1986.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to challenge the DNA results before a further appeal, paving the way for Mr Sullivan’s freedom.

In May 2025, when the appeal sentence was handed down, Sullivan was listening via video link from HMP Wakefield, sitting next to his probation officer.

“When they came back with the verdict that my case had been overturned, [the probation officer] “First I burst into tears,” he said.

“She turned around and said, ‘Peter, you’re going home.’…

“The next minute, bang, all the tears started streaming down my face and that was it, I was like, ‘yes, justice has been done.'”

The outside world has been a bewildering place for a man who was detained when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and the internet was unheard of.

Speaking of the moment he was walked out of prison, he said: “I was watching the cars go by and I had never seen so many different cars on that road in my life.

“It was disheartening to see them all changed and everything.”

Since his release, he sometimes finds himself standing in his bedroom waiting for a prison officer to take roll call, a habit that is hard to break after nearly 40 years.

Sullivan said he feels “very sorry” for Miss Sindall’s family, who he said are “back at square one” in their fight for justice.

“I have gone through the same pain while in prison, because I have also been separated from my family for something I have not done,” he said.

Merseyside Police said that due to “substantial changes” to the law and investigation practices since 1986, there would be “little benefit” to any formal review of how the case was investigated.

He said it was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct after the appeal ruling, but no misconduct was identified.

The Crown Prosecution Service said that while the Court of Appeal accepted the new DNS evidence, other grounds of appeal were rejected. Nick Price, its director of legal services, said: “The allegation was brought on the basis of all the evidence available to us at the time.”

The case of Miss Sindall’s murder has been reopened, although no arrests have been made.

For Sullivan, there remains the hope of compensation, limited by the government to £1 million for wrongful convictions.

Mrs Myatt, who is helping him with his application, said: “There is no figure you can say that is enough to lose 38 years of your life.”