What the case of Peter Sullivan reveals about the system that wrongfully imprisoned him

Good morning. No living victim of a miscarriage of justice has endured their punishment for as long as Peter Sullivan. On Tuesday, 38 years after the murder of 21-year-old florist and part-time pub worker Diane Sindall, Sullivan’s conviction was finally overturned on appeal because of DNA evidence found in semen samples preserved from the scene of the crime.

The decision means that the culprit for the appalling sexual killing of Sindall has never been found. It also means that Sullivan finally has official recognition of the wrong he faced. Extraordinarily, his response did not dwell on the failures that led to his decades in prison. “I’m not angry, I’m not bitter,” he said in a statement read by his lawyer. “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract [from the fact] that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.”

While Sullivan’s attitude is remarkable, some say that the failures in his wrongful imprisonment are the latest evidence of a larger problem revealed in the case of Andrew Malkinson, who served 17 years for a rape he did not commit.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke to James Burley – the investigator who led the charity Appeal’s indispensable work on Malkinson’s case – about where the system is going wrong, and how it might be fixed. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘There is so much historical evidence that the system is fallible’

Peter Sullivan was finally freed thanks to an intervention by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice and sends them back to the courts if there is new evidence and a “real possibility” of a verdict being overturned. (You can read more about how it operates here.)

It was the CCRC that ordered the DNA tests that led the court of appeal to overturn Sullivan’s conviction. “The case manager who handled his application deserves credit for initiating a review,” James Burley said. “But there are real questions about what happened before that.”

How was the case handled by the CCRC?

Sullivan first applied to the CCRC for a review in 2008, asking if it would seek DNA evidence that could exonerate him. At the time, the science behind that process was far less advanced than it is now – and the specific forensic technique pointing to a different person as the culprit was not yet reliably available.

The CCRC’s decision at that point may therefore be understandable. But the technique, known as Y-STR, was fully available as early as 2013 – when it was used to exonerate Victor Nealon, who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of sexual assault. “The CCRC launched a ‘lessons learned’ review after that case, but it did no good for Andrew Malkinson or Peter Sullivan,” said Burley. “They convinced themselves that it was a one-off, and it was unlikely to be happening in other cases.”

Last year, the CCRC announced a re-examination of 5,500 previously rejected cases – but critics say that should have happened much sooner. Burley argued here that the scope of the review is too narrow in any case, and does not include use of the Y-STR technique. On Wednesday, the former justice secretary Charlie Falconer told the Today programme: “It’s absolutely horrific that Mr Sullivan spent 11 years at least in prison when the new test had become available and could have exculpated him.”

What about the courts?

As well as the CCRC, Burley said, “the case is an indictment of the courts”. He pointed to Sullivan’s attempt to go back to the court of appeal in 2019, arguing that flawed bite mark evidence and an unreliable confession extracted under severe pressure undermined his conviction. After two years, the court turned him down. “It’s just so recent,” Burley said. “They didn’t have access to the new DNA evidence, but they did know about the dodgy bite mark and dodgy confession. If the court of appeal was less reluctant to accept that the trial process can go wrong, that could make a real difference.”

Burley was in court this week when the decision to free Sullivan was handed down. He noted that despite the fact Sullivan has served almost four decades in prison for a crime he did not commit, there was little sign of self-examination within the system that ruined his life.

“There was no real contrition shown either by the prosecution barrister or the appeal judges, and certainly no apology. They allowed the appeal on DNA grounds, but rejected the [bite mark and confession] grounds on which he was convicted in the first place. It’s like they’re saying: ‘With what was known at the time, this was unavoidable, but aren’t you lucky now?’ The lack of humility is staggering.” Nor have Merseyside police, which was responsible for the case, issued an apology, saying only that “we do not underestimate the impact of the conviction on Mr Sullivan”.

What does this suggest about other cases?

One striking thing about the overturning of Sullivan’s conviction is that it relied entirely on DNA evidence. “You’re just not going to get that kind of huge breakthrough all the time,” Burley said. “In a lot of cases, it’s going to be very hard to find fresh evidence that meets those criteria even if there were real problems with the case at trial.”

Even when DNA evidence might be available, the UK’s onerous rules around the disclosure of evidence to defendants after conviction means there is a mountain to climb for success – even for the minority of imprisoned defendants who have proper legal representation. “We have a really restrictive law that means that essentially you’re at the mercy of the police in allowing access,” Burley said. “The fundamental problem is: what incentive do the police have to allow scrutiny if they think they have the right person in prison?”

Only the CCRC has the authority to force disclosure if the police opposes it. In the case of Malkinson (pictured above in 2023), it eventually did so after he had two applications turned down, in 2009 and 2018. “We were successful in his case – but in others, it hasn’t been possible, and the courts have backed the police,” Burley said. “Unfortunately, I think a lot of it comes down to luck.”

Is the CCRC up to the task?

In this piece for the London Review of Books in January, Appeal’s co-director Matt Foot sets out some of what has changed at the CCRC. He quotes the former MP Chris Mullin, a key participant in the parliamentary debates that led to its foundation, who said that it needed “people with a track record of scepticism towards the official version of events”.

In recent years, Foot argues, there has been little sign of that culture in the organisation. “It has appeared more concerned with its reputation with the court of appeal than its record on wrongful convictions, which is the core mission,” Burley said. “They are often unwilling to go against the police and the courts.”

He puts that down, in part, to a series of cases in which the court of appeal criticised the CCRC for referring them in the first place. “There’s been a kind of culture of incuriosity, where the CCRC would rather find reasons to reject a case than pursue it.”

Crucially, the only mechanism to challenge a CCRC rejection is through judicial review, which is a costly and complicated process. “It’s not enough to show that a decision was wrong, but that it was so irrational as to be unlawful,” Burley said. “You need some kind of challenge mechanism, and I think if they had that kind of scrutiny their decision-making would be better.”

Can we be confident in the system?

Over its history, the CCRC has referred about 3% of applications to the court of appeal. That dropped to 1% in the late 2010s, but has risen since. Among cases that are passed back to the courts, 68% have resulted in a conviction being quashed since the body’s creation in 1997 – 592 cases in total out of more than 33,000 applications.

To be sure, there will be a significant number of applicants who really are guilty, or have no realistic legal basis to challenge the jury’s verdict. But given the difficulty accessing DNA evidence, the attitude of the court of appeal, and questions about the CCRC’s culture, Burley is sceptical that miscarriages of justice are being adequately addressed.

“I have zero confidence the cases the CCRC refers are the only ones that merit referral,” he said. “I don’t believe that of the 97% that have been rejected, every one has been correct.”

The argument often made against all of this is that a system which entertains more attempts to overturn verdicts delivered by a jury risks undermining confidence in the system. “But nobody is served by the wrong person being in prison except the real perpetrator,” Burley said.

“There’s an obsession with having closure in cases – but there is so much historical evidence that the system is fallible, the idea that you pretend it isn’t to maintain the facade of finality doesn’t make any sense to me. People are never going to have faith in a system that’s unwilling to honestly face up to its mistakes.”

What else we’ve been reading

For our Black diaspora newsletter, The Long Wave, Nesrine Malik reviews Michelle Obama’s new podcast, and ponders how the former first lady has reinvented herself over the years. “I found myself listening not to hear any snippets of political gossip or insight into the Obamas’ lifestyle, but to receive some exceptionally articulated wisdom from an older Black woman who has gone through milestones we will all experience,” she writes. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters

The case for assisted dying for those close to death from agonising conditions is straightforward to make. But, Lucy Webster argues in this excellent piece, the consequences of the bill for England and Wales being voted on tomorrow for disabled people are much more alarming than its advocates suggest. Archie

Opposition to low traffic neighbourhoods, or LTNs, often falls into climate sceptic, conspiracy theorist culture war stuff – but not always, as Joseph Harker writes in this column on how the introduction of one such zone started something of a civil war in one London borough. Charlie

The 100th birthday of her novel Mrs Dalloway makes now as good a time as any to dig into some Virginia Woolf. If you’ve not before, Francesca Wade has you covered with this excellent beginner’s guide of where to start with the beloved author. Charlie

In the months since the US election, it has become apparent that many Democrats had huge concerns about Joe Biden’s decline long before he stepped down. In an extract from their new book in the New Yorker, Jake Sullivan and Alex Thompson tell the jaw-dropping story of how Biden supporter George Clooney became so alarmed that he wrote an article about it – ultimately, to no avail. Archie

Sport

Football | Dejan Kulusevski has undergone knee surgery and will miss Tottenham’s Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao next Wednesday. The club have confirmed the setback, which came after Ange Postecoglou raised fears on Monday about the attacking midfielder’s involvement in the showpiece.

Tennis | The Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner has met Pope Leo XIV, a few days after the newly elected pontiff, who is passionate about tennis, confessed that he wouldn’t want to face a match with the world number one.

Football | Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the social media platform Reddit and husband of the tennis legend Serena Williams, has bought a 10% stake in the Chelsea women’s team for £20m. He said he had invested to “finally match their talent with the resources and respect they deserve”.

The front pages

The Guardian’s splash on this Thursday morning is “Minister accused over surge in meetings with US big tech firms”. “Post-Brexit ‘reset’ talks with Brussels stall over fishing and youth mobility” – that’s the Financial Times,while the Metro has “You killed our beautiful boy … we’ll never forgive you” on a story about the sentencing of a man whose illegal cannabis factory exploded, taking the life of seven-year-old Archie York.

In the i, the lead is “UK food and drink prices set to rise in blow to Starmer’s cost of living plan”. In the Express, it’s “New demand to reverse ‘cruel’ winter fuel cut”. “Early release for sexual offenders as jails on brink” – the Times on what the Mail calls “Yet another Labour plan to go soft on criminals”. “Dream hol to jail hell” – the Mirror on the “18-year-old who went missing in Thailand found in eastern European prison”. The top story in the Telegraph is “NHS offers treatment to ‘trans toddlers’”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

“The first person I saw was a 90-something Frenchman looking for a threesome.” For the Guardian’s Filter section, journalist and dating expert Olivia Petter has journeyed into the wild west of dating apps to run down the best choice for those looking for love (or something more casual).

From the best for first-timers to the best for older daters, Petter’s list is exhaustive in its detail, from which ones are worth paying for, to which are least likely to produce unsolicited pictures of various bits.

“It’s best to take the whole dating app experience with a hefty pinch of salt and humour,” she concludes. “My advice is to try to have fun while being open, intentional and honest.”

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

Quick crossword

Cryptic crossword

Wordiply