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Considering he who's lost almost 40 years of his life because of a crime he was innocent of, Peter Sullivan strikes a unusually optimistic outlook.

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

That was the year of the violent killing of Diane Sindall in his home town of Birkenhead - an event he said he was merely aware of because someone approached him in a pub at the time and said, "reportedly there's been a murder".

When he was found guilty the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was condemned to a indefinite period in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be persecuted by his tabloid nicknames "The Wirral Predator", "The Mersey Ripper" and "The Wolfman".

Navigating a Transformed World

Ahead of our conversation, he was full of stories about how since his freedom he has had to adjust to a fundamentally altered world.

When he was detained, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, the concept of the internet and Europe was still separated by the Iron Curtain.

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

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

Technological Challenges

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

"Having endured so long in prison and learning 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, 'Amazing, what's going on here?'"

He now has a digital phone, after finding out doctor's appointments need to be booked on something he now knows is called an 'app'.

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

Psychological Consequences

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

He remembered how after his freedom, one morning in his flat he walked back to his bedroom and settled on his bed, because he was unconsciously waiting for a prison officer to come and lock him back into his cell.

"You must be at your door at a specific hour, otherwise the officers will go off at you", he said.

"I was just sitting there thinking, 'What am I doing?'"

Seeking Answers

But Mr Sullivan's hope is balanced by a yearning for answers about how he came to be charged with an infamous murder that he didn't commit, and a bewilderment about why he still has not had an apology.

"Everything is gone", he said.

"My liberty was taken, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.

"The pain is deep because I wasn't there for them", he said.

"It's impossible to continue with my life if I can't get an answer off them."

"My only request, an apology [and to understand] the explanation for they've done this to me", he said.

Law Enforcement Position

Merseyside Police said "limited value to be gained for a re-examination of this matter today" because of "the changes to investigative techniques and progress in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did forward some of Mr Sullivan's claims to the police regulatory agency, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now look at his claims that officers beat him up and intimidated 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 comprehensive declaration it said: "The force recognizes that there has been a significant injustice of justice in this case".

Looking Ahead

Mr Sullivan explained about his simple goal - an ambition that he said he had lost hope of being able to achieve at some points over his nearly four decades behind bars.

"All I want to do now is get on with my own life and carry on as I was before, and live my time out now".

His future may be made less challenging by government financial payment, paid to wrongly convicted people of wrongful convictions.

This scheme is capped at £1.3m, a maximum which it is thought his final compensation will get very near.

But the procedure is not automatic, and it is protracted.

Andrew Malkinson, whose sentence for a rape he did not commit was dismissed in 2023, was only given an temporary payment earlier this year.

Admitted offenders who confess to their crimes and are paroled get a place to live and some support regarding living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an wrongly convicted individual, is not entitled to that help.

And so he is surviving a simple existence, with his modest ambitions - although many believe he is a future wealthy man.

His legal representative, Sarah Myatt, said "no amount that you could say that would be enough for sacrificing 38 years of your life".