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The Story

38 years - Britain's worst miscarriage of justice

The Story

[email protected]

Politics, Unknown, Daily News, News

41.5K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Peter Sullivan has been released from prison after spending 38 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. In 1986, 21-year-old Diane Sindall was brutally murdered but it has now been proved that police got the wrong man. DNA found on her body does not belong to Peter Sullivan. Why did it take so long to prove his innocence and is the body that investigates possible miscarriages of justice fit for purpose?

This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today: http://thetimes.com/thestory


Guest: Emily Dugan, Special Correspondent, The Sunday Times.

Host: Manveen Rana

Producers:

  • Hannah Varrall
  • Shabnam Grewal.

Further reading: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/peter-sullivan-miscarriage-justice-07688bqc3

https://www.thetimes.com/article/3f659bf1-d713-437c-9bf3-03a5b65817f7 

Clips: Channel 4 News, Court of Appeal, Daily Express, BBC Crimewatch, Justice Committee 29 April 2025.

Photo: Merseyside Police.

Get in touch: [email protected]  


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

At Barclays, we run programs that help communities across the UK,

0:05.1

whether you're a young person, gaining skills to enter the workplace,

0:09.3

a small business trying to grow and find its place in the modern world,

0:13.6

or a girl in school, building confidence on and off the pitch through football.

0:20.6

We believe everyone deserves to fly.

0:24.4

Search Berkeley's communities to find out more.

0:27.4

Barclays, here for every goal.

0:33.7

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story.

0:38.3

I'm Manvian Rana.

0:46.1

When Peter Sullivan was 29 years old, he was jailed for a murder he didn't commit.

0:55.3

That was in September 1986, when the world was a very different place.

1:02.3

We still have telephone boxes in the street back then.

1:04.8

We don't have them anymore.

1:05.9

It's all mobile phones.

1:06.9

He doesn't have them.

1:08.3

He spent the next 38 years, seven months and 21 days in prison, for a crime he'd never committed.

1:20.6

Two weeks ago, that finally changed when he appeared in front of the Court of Appeal.

1:29.1

And so here he is just on a video link looking so much older

1:32.6

than all the photographs of him at the time of his arrest so many years ago.

1:36.8

And what's been described to me is that he was just sitting on the video link

1:40.0

from HMP Wakefield, listening to the ruling.

1:43.7

New DNA evidence inevitably weakens each strand of the circumstantial evidence.

...

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