🔗 Share this article The exonerated man on living in a 'changed reality' Peter Sullivan sobbed when the court declared it was overturning his guilty verdict For someone who's sacrificed approximately 40 years of his life due to a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan projects a remarkably optimistic outlook. During our encounter last month, for what was his first interview since being freed from prison in May, he was enthusiastic and excited about getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the initial occasion since he was taken into custody in 1986. That was the year of the violent killing of Diane Sindall in his home town of Birkenhead - an incident he said he had limited information regarding because someone approached him in a pub at the time and said, "allegedly there's been a murder". When he was found guilty the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was condemned to a extended term in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be persecuted by his tabloid nicknames "The Beast of Birkenhead", "River Mersey Murderer" and "Lunar Killer". Adapting to a Transformed World Before our interview, he was abundant with tales about how since his exoneration he has had to adjust to a radically changed world. When he was detained, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, the concept of the internet and Europe was still divided by the Iron Curtain. He recalled watching the fall of the Berlin Wall from a shared television in prison. Mr Sullivan told me how trips to the shops now show how "everything's changed" - from trying to understand how self-checkouts operate to realising that "rather than having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone". Digital Adjustments His imprisonment means he has been ignorant of the way so many aspects of everyday life have changed - comparable to someone who has been asleep since the 1980s. "After spending so long in prison and learning there's no DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security, now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)] where you can collect your money - you're thinking, 'Amazing, what's going on here?'" He now has a digital phone, after discovering doctor's appointments need to be scheduled on something he now knows is called an 'mobile program'. He first became knowledgeable about them when he was riding on a bus shortly after his freedom and saw people operating smartphones. He only understood they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear. Psychological Effects Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in confinement have also led to an inevitable sense of institutionalisation. The journalist spoke to Peter Sullivan confidentially in an interview last month He recalled how after his freedom, one morning in his flat he walked back to his bedroom and positioned himself on his bed, because he was automatically waiting for a prison officer to come and secure him into his cell. "You've got to be at your door at a designated moment, otherwise the officers will discipline you", he said. "I found myself thinking, 'What's happening?'" Seeking Explanation But Mr Sullivan's optimism is tempered by a longing for answers about how he came to be charged with an infamous murder that he didn't commit, and a perplexity about why he still has not had an admission of error. "I've lost everything", he said. "My liberty was taken, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father. "It hurts because I wasn't there for them", he said. "I cannot proceed with my life if I can't get an answer off them." "The sole thing I need, an apology [and to understand] the cause behind they've done this to me", he said. Peter Sullivan was sentenced of beating Diane Sindall to death in a "violent assault" Police Response Merseyside Police said "there would be little benefit to be gained for a reassessment of this matter today" because of "advancements to investigative techniques and progress in the law over the last 40 years". The force did refer some of Mr Sullivan's accusations to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now look at his claims that officers beat him up and intimidated to link him to other crimes if he failed to confess to Diane Sindall's murder. When asked if it would issue an apology, the force did not specifically respond the question, but as part of a detailed response it said: "The force acknowledges that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice in this case". Future Prospects Mr Sullivan explained about his modest ambition - an ambition that he said he had abandoned expectation of being able to achieve at some points over his approximately 38 years behind bars. "All I want to do now is proceed with my own life and carry on as I was before, and experience freedom now". Diane Sindall, 21, was due to be married when she was killed His future may be made more manageable by government monetary award, paid to wrongly convicted people of wrongful convictions. This program is capped at £1.3m, a maximum which it is believed his final compensation will get very approach. But the process is not immediate, and it is protracted. Andrew Malkinson, whose guilty verdict for a rape he had no involvement in was dismissed in 2023, was only awarded an interim compensation payout earlier this year. Admitted offenders who admit to their crimes and are released get a place to live and some help with living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an wrongly convicted individual, is not eligible for that help. And so he is living a simple existence, with his modest ambitions - although many consider he is a future wealthy man. His legal representative, Sarah Myatt, said "no sum that you could say that would be sufficient for losing 38 years of your life".