New podcast revisits shocking Birkenhead murder 40 years on

A new true crime podcast has re-examined the killing of Diane Sindall – one of Merseyside’s most horrific murders and one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in modern British history.

Bride-to-be Diane, 21, was raped and murdered in August 1986 after running out of petrol on her way home from the Wellington Pub in Bebington where she worked part-time as a barmaid.

Local labourer Peter Sullivan was convicted of her murder and served 38 years in prison before crucial DNA evidence confirmed his innocence and he was released last year.

Liverpool journalist Olivia Graham says:

“A miscarriage of justice for Peter is a miscarriage of justice for Diane. Her killer has never been found.

“We need to find out who committed her murder.”

“This case is as important now as it was then.

“We need to know what happened … and will it happen again?”

The new BBC eight-part investigative podcast, Crime Next Door: The Beast of Birkenhead, looks at both the killing of young florist Diane and the failures and outdated investigative practices that led to a conviction being quashed – and the real killer evading detection for almost four decades.

Diane’s brutal death devastated her family and shocked a community.

Olivia returns to the area and speaks to residents who vividly remember the crime and the fear it caused, as well as criminal profilers, former detectives and forensic experts to find out what went so wrong.

She also explores the issue of women’s safety then, and now:

“There have been advancements, but Liverpool has the highest rate of femicide in the UK!”

Diane Sindall, Credit: (Merseyside Police/PA)

Together with co-producers Kate Bissell and Gemma Maull, Olivia began her investigations before Peter Sullivan’s conviction was overturned.

She said:

“When we started this podcast, I never expected this would be the journey we’d go on,”

“Initially we were looking at what happened, how Peter Sullivan was brought into the frame and what could have potentially gone wrong; and once he was released it definitely became more of a focus on reassessing everything that we knew and everything that we had been told because if someone spends 38/39 years in prison for something he didn’t do, there were going to be questions that as yet hadn’t been answered.

“The first thing I noticed was that people were willing to talk and while we expected the families of Diane and Peter to be affected by this, we realised so many people, women especially in this community, were impacted by what happened, and it had stayed with them and changed them forever.

“There was a need to talk, and people were telling us things they’d never told anyone.

“We were a local voice and people trusted us to tell the story properly and on their behalf; they really opened up to us and one thing I’m really proud of is being trusted by these people to tell their stories and be in a place to air their emotion after all this time.”

Olivia uncovered a new lead who revealed more about what was happening in the weeks leading up to Diane Sindall’s murder: “What he told me shocked me,” she admits.

The podcast highlights Peter Sullivan’s hopes for an apology as well as a new search for a killer. Merseyside Police reopened the case in 2023 and there’s a £20,000 reward being offered by Crimestoppers for information leading to the conviction of the real killer of Diane Sindall.

Olivia said:

“If the killer is still alive, he’s potentially still out there and still perpetrating violence against women,”

“And we still don’t feel that women are safe.

“Every woman we spoke to who was around 40 years ago talks about how it changed their life forever, but they couldn’t say whether they felt any safer now than they did then.

“This looks at what happened and what it means for us as a community.

“What I did find inspiring was how much fight people still have in them to see justice; passion to do the right thing and ask for answers.

“It’s a really harrowing story that’s been hard to make, but to meet people with so much strength and will made it easier for me, for us, to make.”

“The day Peter was released his family revealed life started again. For Diane’s family, it ended again.

Crime Next Door: The Beast of Birkenhead is available from today, Monday, April 20, on BBC Sounds.