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Considering he who's sacrificed nearly 40 years of his life due to a crime he had no involvement in, Peter Sullivan maintains a surprisingly optimistic attitude.

During our encounter last month, for what was his first interview since being released from prison in May, he was cheerful and excited about getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the opening match since he was taken into custody in 1986.

That was the year of the brutal homicide of Diane Sindall in his home town of Birkenhead - an incident he said he only knew about because someone spoke to him in a pub at the time and said, "apparently there's been a murder".

When he was sentenced 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", "Merseyside Killer" and "Lunar Killer".

Navigating a Modern World

Before our interview, he was full of stories about how since his exoneration he has had to adapt to a fundamentally altered world.

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

He recalled watching the fall of the Berlin Wall from a public television in prison.

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

Modern Challenges

His incarceration means he has been oblivious to the way so many aspects of everyday life have transformed - similar to someone who has been in hibernation since the 1980s.

"Following 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 collect your money - you're thinking, 'Goodness, what's going on here?'"

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

He first became acquainted with them when he was sitting 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.

Emotional Consequences

Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in confinement have also led to an inevitable sense of prison conditioning.

He remembered how after his liberation, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and settled on his bed, because he was subconsciously waiting for a prison officer to come and secure him into his cell.

"You've got to 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?'"

Demanding Answers

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

"I've lost everything", he said.

"Freedom disappeared, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.

"The pain is deep because I couldn't be present for them", he said.

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

"My only request, an apology [and to understand] the reason why 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 "developments to investigative techniques and progress in the law over the last 40 years".

The force did submit some of Mr Sullivan's allegations to the police oversight body, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now examine his claims that officers assaulted him and intimidated to link him to other crimes if he didn't plead guilty to Diane Sindall's murder.

When asked if it would issue an apology, the force did not directly answer 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".

Looking Ahead

Mr Sullivan told me about his simple goal - an ambition that he said he had lost hope of being able to achieve at some points over his approximately 38 years behind bars.

"All I want to do now is proceed with my own life and move forward as I was before, and enjoy my remaining years now".

His future may be made easier by government financial payment, paid to victims of judicial errors.

This scheme is capped at £1.3m, a limit which it is thought his eventual payout will get very near.

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

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

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

And so he is living a simple existence, with his humble goals - although many believe he is a future wealthy man.

His attorney, Sarah Myatt, said "no sum that you could say that would be enough for forfeiting 38 years of your life".