Peter Sullivan who has spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed
https://news.sky.com/story/peter-sullivan-who-has-spent-38-years-in-jail-for-murder-has-conviction-quashed-13363928
Posted by topotaul
Peter Sullivan who has spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed
https://news.sky.com/story/peter-sullivan-who-has-spent-38-years-in-jail-for-murder-has-conviction-quashed-13363928
Posted by topotaul
34 Comments
Awful.
This is one of the many reasons I’m against the death penalty, this is one of the convictions that would have people baying for blood.
38 years in jail. Longest miscarriage of justice for an overturned conviction I think.
So the real killer got away with it.
Well, that sucks. Would’ve been 30 at the time he went in. He’s 68 now.
And it will be extremely difficult for him to get compensation, because the government changed the law regarding compensation so that you now have to prove your innocence beyond reasonable doubt (rather than just showing that the government can’t prove your guilt) in order to be entitled to compensation for wrongful imprisonment, which is an almost impossible threshold to meet.
They changed the law because they didn’t want to pay compensation to people who got their convictions quashed on technicalities.
The maximum compensation wrongfully imprisoned people can get is £1 million, so that’s about 26K a year (they don’t deduct the prison’s expenses from it anymore at least).
He’s spent well over 1/2 of his life in prison.
BBC news said that the DNA processing test freed him was only invented in 2015, but still, it seems bizarre how cases like this take *so* long to get tested.
Man being locked up for something I didn’t do is my worst fear. Sitting in prison day in day out knowing you’re innocent would be absolute torture.
Hope he gets a fat sum of cash, but that bullshit law change will make it difficult.
Should automatically be entitled to a lump sum without you having to do anything if you spend that much time locked up for a crime you didn’t commit.
Well over half his life lost, all the best years he can never get back. I hope any compensation is fast tracked as at 68 he should not have to begin another battle for justice.
“At the time of Mr Sullivan’s trial in 1987, DNA technology was not available and subsequent requests for new tests had been refused.” Why would you not work just as hard to prove someone’s innocence as their guilt !
Just cruel and arguably worse than the death penalty, he gets his deserved freedom but at retirement age.
The healthiest and fittest years of his life are long gone and even with a settlement of millions, what does that actually give him with his remaining years?
Jesus christ, he should be due millions given his innocence.
You just can’t imagine it. Banged up in a Cat A for 38 years for a crime you never commited and nobody believes you.
Absolutely horrific.
Jesus, what do you even do at this point? That’s your whole life gone, for something you didn’t do.
I hope he sues. He is already entitled to at least 1 mill quid for being in prison for 10 years on a wrongful conviction. Could use that to sue the government to get compensation etc. Would be deserved for 30+ years for being wrongfully imprisoned.
Misread the headline as Peter Sutcliffe and thought “huge if true”.
He was 29 when he was locked up and is now pretty much a 70 year old. His entire life has been wasted because of a false conviction and what was probably a forced confession. And any family he has/had might have been shunning him all this time as well.
The lady who was raped and murdered is a victim of the criminal who did it and this bloke is a victim of the people who are supposed to protect us.
Scumbag police, depriving a mentally-handicapped man of a lawyer despite his requests while they tortured a false confession out of him
The state really, really, REALLY has an issue admitting mistakes. The coppers, CPS, and judge who stole this man’s life need to at the very least pay compensation and lose any pensions.
“Should we have the death penalty?”
No, and this is why
The absolute number one reason why everyone should be against the death penalty.
You don’t judge it purely based on the real scumbags who definitely did the crime they were accused of (and, being honest, probably deserve the long drop and quick stop), you have to consider the consequences for cases like this.
Interesting that Goss, who presided over the Letby trial, was one of the three judges sitting on this ruling.
>That original investigation was the largest in the force’s history
I suspect miscarriages of justice might be more common after investigations that are “too big to fail.”
Jesus what a horrific thing. I wonder if either of his parents are still alive, I would hope they didn’t die thinking he was a murderer. Just awful. The victim and this man were failed tremendously.
Several awful things about this case.
Firstly he was suspected because he was a “loner” which seems to be a common police operating procedure. Find the oddball and pressure them into a confession so you can close the case and move on.
Secondly he was convicted based on “bite mark analysis” which was always pseudoscience and whose main promoter should have been in prison themselves for profiting off fraud.
This happens probably more often than people would like to admit. High profile cases where they intimidate a mentally ill person into a confession to get the press/community to calm down.
I wish for the peace he has in himself to not be bitter or resentful.
Poor bloke, hope he gets millions in compensation. Life in tatters
This sort of shit gives me the Chills. Just goes to show if the police finger you for the crime you are up against the whole state.
Makes me doubt loads of cases based on hearsay.
That’s terribly sad, he’s not angry or bitter… better man than me. His life was stolen. I hope he is somehow compensated and justice happens for the lady who was murdered.
Denied legal representation. Denied an appropriate adult. And Merseyside Police pull puppy dog eyes and wonder why everyone hates them. It’s shit like this.
Minimum term 16 years; served 38. I wonder if the main reason he was denied parole was because he maintained his innocence?
>In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.
>The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.
How on earth you have that composure and empathy after going through this is beyond me. He’s stronger than I am.
What is astounding in this case is DNA samples were taken and preserved. Yet, despite that, no one involved in the appeals process thought to have those samples cross checked with the appellant.
The cynical might say there is a presumed bias in the CCRC when it comes to guilt or innocence, which doesn’t favour the latter of these.
How manyore if these cases are out there?
He’ll be fighting for years for compensation, then if it’s awarded, he’ll be charged for his bed and board for 38 years. True story that
The police conduct in this case really needs to be examined. What did they do to him, to get him to confess to a crime he did not commit, whilst allowing the real criminal to escape. Yet another example of the British police’s love of a fit-up….
Makes me feel real confident in the UK justice system.