Overview
- The Independent Office for Police Conduct, which confirmed Friday it had opened an investigation, is examining complaints about how Merseyside Police handled the 1986 inquiry and Peter Sullivan’s arrest.
- The watchdog said it received a referral on January 22 after a complaint from Sullivan and is gathering records, consulting several agencies, and setting terms of reference after speaking with him.
- IOPC director Amanda Rowe called Sullivan’s case one of the worst miscarriages of justice in the UK and warned that the age of the case poses evidential challenges while pledging not to hinder the live murder inquiry.
- Merseyside Police, working with the National Crime Agency, is running a separate homicide investigation that has taken about 500 DNA samples to identify an unknown male profile with no match on the national database.
- Sullivan’s conviction was quashed in May 2025 after a Criminal Cases Review Commission-led DNA review found a profile that was not his, and he alleges he was beaten and questioned without legal advice in 1986.