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For someone who's lost nearly 40 years of his life because of a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan strikes a remarkably positive attitude.

During our encounter last month, for what was his initial media appearance since being liberated from prison in May, he was cheerful and looking forward to getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the initial occasion since he was detained in 1986.

That was the year of the sexual attack murder of Diane Sindall in his birthplace of Birkenhead - an occurrence he said he was merely aware of 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 sentenced to a indefinite period in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be persecuted by his tabloid nicknames "Birkenhead's Monster", "The Mersey Ripper" and "Nocturnal Predator".

Adjusting to a Transformed World

Ahead of our conversation, he was full of stories about how since his exoneration he has had to acclimate to a completely different world.

When he was taken into custody, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, the concept of the internet and Europe was still partitioned by the Iron Curtain.

He explained watching the demolition of the Berlin Wall from a communal television in prison.

Mr Sullivan explained how trips to the shops now show how "the world has transformed" - from trying to figure out how self-checkouts function to realising that "instead of having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone".

Technological Surprises

His incarceration means he has been unaware of the way so many facets of everyday life have evolved - similar to someone who has been unconscious since the 1980s.

"Having endured so long in prison and discovering there's no DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security, now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)] where you can receive your money - you're thinking, 'Goodness, what's going on here?'"

He now has a smartphone, after discovering doctor's appointments need to be arranged on something he now knows is called an 'application'.

He first became knowledgeable about them when he was sitting on a bus shortly after his liberation and saw people twiddling with smartphones. He only recognized they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear.

Emotional Consequences

Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in custody have also led to an unavoidable sense of system dependency.

He recalled how after his freedom, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and sat down on his bed, because he was automatically waiting for a prison officer to come and secure him into his cell.

"It's required to be at your door at a specific hour, otherwise the officers will go off at you", he said.

"I found myself thinking, 'What's happening?'"

Desiring Closure

But Mr Sullivan's optimism is tempered by a longing for answers about how he was charged with an infamous murder that he didn't commit, and a perplexity about why he still has not had an expression of regret.

"My entire life vanished", he said.

"I lost all my freedom, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.

"It hurts because I couldn't be present for them", he said.

"I cannot proceed with my life if I can't get an explanation off them."

"That's all I want, an apology [and to understand] the explanation for they've done this to me", he said.

Police Response

Merseyside Police said "minimal advantage to be gained for a review of this matter today" because of "advancements to investigative techniques and developments in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did submit some of Mr Sullivan's allegations to the police regulatory agency, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now investigate his claims that officers physically abused him and threatened to link him to other crimes if he failed to confess to Diane Sindall's murder.

When asked if it would express regret, the force did not clearly address the question, but as part of a lengthy statement it said: "The force acknowledges that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice in this case".

Moving Forward

Mr Sullivan told me about his modest ambition - an ambition that he said he had abandoned expectation of being able to accomplish at some points over his almost forty years behind bars.

"The sole objective to do now is continue with my own life and progress as I was before, and live my time out now".

His future may be made easier by government compensation, paid to individuals affected of wrongful convictions.

This scheme is limited at £1.3m, a limit which it is believed his eventual payout will get very close to.

But the system is not immediate, and it is time-consuming.

Andrew Malkinson, whose sentence for a rape he had no involvement in was quashed in 2023, was only given an temporary payment earlier this year.

Guilty prisoners who acknowledge their crimes and are paroled get a accommodation and some help with living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an innocent man, is not qualified for that help.

And so he is living a simple existence, with his modest ambitions - although many believe he is a compensation recipient.

His lawyer, Sarah Myatt, said "there's not a figure that you could say that would be sufficient for sacrificing 38 years of your life".