Fresh push to find real 'Beast of Birkenhead' killer
HandoutDetectives are hoping a £20,000 reward will unlock new evidence to solve a murder that resulted in the wrong man spending 38 years in prison.
Peter Sullivan had been serving a life sentence for the 1986 murder of Diane Sindall in Merseyside, but fresh DNA testing saw him cleared by the Court of Appeal and released from prison in May 2025.
Sindall, a florist who was also working part-time at a pub to save up for her wedding, was beaten to death in a frenzied sexual attack on Borough Road, Birkenhead.
Since the case was re-opened Merseyside Police has asked for voluntary DNA samples resulting in 461 men - including Sindall's male relatives and fiancé - being eliminated from the investigation.
For years Sullivan was dubbed the 'Beast of Birkenhead' and the 'Mersey Ripper' by tabloid newspapers.
Now the independent charity Crimestoppers has offered the £20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the real killer.
Police know that Sindall left her shift behind the bar at the Wellington Pub in Bebington at around 23:45 BST on 1 August 1986 and began driving home in a blue Fiat van she used in her job as a florist in the Seacombe area.
It is believed she ran out of petrol and left the vehicle on Borough Road, where she was seen by several witnesses walking along between 00:00 and 00:20.
Her brutalised and partially naked body was found in an alley off the main road on 2 August, and a post-mortem revealed she had died from a bleed on the brain.
Two weeks later, her partially burned clothing was recovered by police on Bidston Hill, around two-and-a-half miles from the murder scene.
The force said witnesses had reported seeing smoke in that area and a man running away the day after her body was found.
Det Supt Rachel Wilson told the BBC: "Diane was a lone female on Borough Road. She should have been safe to leave a car, go and get some petrol but instead she's been brutally sexually assaulted and murdered by a male who we have yet to identify, who are determined to try and find.
"So this might be someone with a history of violence but just hasn't been identified through police investigations to date and that's why I ask for people who have got concerns about a family member, a neighbour to come forward."
British Newspaper ArchiveBack in 2023, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) - the body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice - ordered fresh testing of semen samples recovered from Sindall's body in 1986.
A new DNA profile was recovered, and after it proved to be categorically not a match for Sullivan the case was re-opened by Merseyside Police.
The force said searches of the national DNA database drew a blank.
DNA samples have since been requested from anyone identified as a person of interest in the original investigation or having a family link to Sindall.
Wilson said even if a person of interest is identified who has since died, testing of family members could still take place.
As well as the 461 men eliminated from the case so far, a further 41 samples are in the process of being tested.
In November last year, 68-year-old Sullivan told the BBC he had been pressured into making a false confession and even beaten with truncheons by police officers back in 1986.
Sullivan, who has learning difficulties, was interviewed seven times without a solicitor and said he was told if he did not confess he'd be charged with "35 rapes".
"I can't forgive them for what they've done to me, because it's going to be there for the rest of my life," he said, adding he had "lost everything" since going to prison.
Merseyside Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) over Sullivan's comments.
Asked how different the investigation was today compared to the original case in 1986, Wilson said "it's a very different world".
"Leading an investigation now I'd have CCTV, I'd have telecoms. Back in 1986 there was nothing like that," she said.
"The benefit now is we've got the DNA enhancements so we've got a full profile of a male, a man we want to identify."
The reward is only available to people who provide information to Crimestoppers and not directly to the police, and the offer will be in place until April.
Gary Murray, North West regional manager for the charity, said "someone, somewhere knows what happened that night".
"Crimestoppers is independent of the police. When you contact the charity, you stay completely anonymous."
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