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Considering he who's sacrificed nearly 40 years of his life as a result of a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan projects a remarkably positive tone.

In our conversation last month, for what was his first interview since being liberated from prison in May, he was cheerful and looking forward to getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the first time since he was detained in 1986.

That was the year of the violent killing of Diane Sindall in his local community of Birkenhead - an occurrence he said he had limited information regarding because someone spoke to him in a pub at the time and said, "allegedly there's been a murder".

When he was convicted the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was condemned to a extended term in some of Britain's toughest category A prisons where he would be tormented by his tabloid nicknames "The Wirral Predator", "River Mersey Murderer" and "Nocturnal Predator".

Adjusting to a Modern World

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

When he was detained, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, no one had heard of the internet and Europe was still separated by the Iron Curtain.

He explained watching the collapse of the Berlin Wall from a shared television in prison.

Mr Sullivan told me how trips to the shops now show how "everything's changed" - from trying to understand how self-checkouts function to realising that "in place of having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone".

Technological Adjustments

His incarceration means he has been ignorant of the way so many aspects of everyday life have evolved - comparable to someone who has been asleep 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 pick up your money - you're thinking, 'Amazing, what's going on here?'"

He now has a mobile device, after finding out doctor's appointments need to be scheduled on something he now knows is called an 'mobile program'.

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

Psychological Impact

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

He described how after his release, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and positioned himself on his bed, because he was unconsciously waiting for a prison officer to come and lock him back into his cell.

"You've got to be at your door at a certain time, otherwise the officers will go off at you", he said.

"I remained thinking, 'What am I doing?'"

Demanding Answers

But Mr Sullivan's optimism is mixed with a yearning for answers about how he came to be charged with an high-profile murder that he was innocent of, and a confusion about why he still has not had an admission of error.

"Everything is gone", he said.

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

"It hurts because I was absent for them", he said.

"I can't carry on with my life if I can't get an explanation off them."

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

Police Statement

Merseyside Police said "limited value to be gained for a reassessment of this matter today" because of "developments to investigative techniques and developments in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did submit some of Mr Sullivan's claims to the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now look at his claims that officers beat him up and warned to link him to other crimes if he failed to confess to Diane Sindall's murder.

When asked if it would issue an apology, the force did not clearly address the question, but as part of a detailed response it said: "The force regrets that there has been a significant injustice of justice in this case".

Moving Forward

Mr Sullivan shared about his modest ambition - an ambition that he said he had abandoned expectation of being able to achieve at some points over his approximately 38 years behind bars.

"All I want to do now is get on with my own life and move forward as I was before, and experience freedom now".

His prospects may be made less challenging by government compensation, paid to victims of judicial errors.

This scheme is restricted at £1.3m, a maximum which it is thought his eventual payout will get very approach.

But the system is not automatic, and it is lengthy.

Andrew Malkinson, whose sentence for a rape he was innocent of was quashed in 2023, was only given an interim compensation payout earlier this year.

Convicted criminals who acknowledge their crimes and are freed get a accommodation and some assistance for living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an innocent man, is not entitled to that help.

And so he is living a modest life, with his humble goals - although many believe he is a millionaire in waiting.

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