Real killer of Diane Sindall ‘was KNOWN’ after arrest of Peter Sullivan but locals refused to tell police -leading man wrongly branded Beast of Birkenhead to serve 38 years for murder he didn’t commit

The real identity of the ‘Beast of Birkenhead’ who brutally murdered Diane Sindall was known to residents of local estates, according to a charity set up in her memory.

But no-one from the ‘tribal’ and ‘tight-knit’ communities was willing to come forward and name the killer to police ‘for fear of repercussions’, staff said today.

As a result, Peter Sullivan spent 38 years behind bars before his conviction for beating the 21-year-old to death in 1986 was quashed by the Court of Appeal earlier this week.

Police have now reopened their investigation into the florist’s murder, which caused shock and revulsion across the Wirral and beyond.

However they say there is no match on the national database for the newly-analysed DNA recovered from the scene which led to 68-year-old Mr Sullivan’s name being cleared.

RASA Merseyside – short for rape and sexual abuse support – was set up after Ms Sindall’s killing to help victims of sexual violence.

Now Josephine Wood from the charity has told the BBC it was approached by several local people who told them police had the wrong man.

However they would not reveal the true identity of her killer to detectives, she added.

Part-time barmaid Diane Sindall, 21, was savagely battered to death, stripped half-naked, indecently assaulted, mutilated and her breasts bitten, and her body discarded in an alleyway

Peter Sullivan, who has learning difficulties, has been subjected to the longest miscarriage of justice in UK history

Josephine Wood, who works at a charity for sex assault victims set up after Diane Sindall’s brutal 1986 murder, says people living on ‘tribal’ estates in Birkenhead were scared name the  real killer to police ‘for fear of repercussions’

‘We were told on several occasions that the police had the wrong man,’ she said.

‘But we didn’t have evidence, we didn’t have anything to offer, we just knew what we’d been told and the people are adamant that you’ve got the wrong person.

‘But without any evidence, without names, without people willing to come forward which is a really big deal, seriously what could be done?’

Ms Wood said communities in deprived areas around Birkenhead were ‘tribal’ and ‘tight-knit’ in the 1980s, making it difficult for people to come forward.

She told the broadcaster that it would be ‘really hard’ for someone to tell police ‘we know who this is’ due to the fear of ‘repercussions’ and ‘what might happen’.

‘I would like to think that maybe 40 years down the line we can actually now go back to those people and say “Come on tell us what you know”,’ she added.

‘Tell us what happened, you must feel safer now, you must feel a way that you can come forward, because if this guy hasn’t done it somebody else has and we need to find out who that was.’

Former labourer Mr Sullivan was released from Category A Wakefield Prison on Tuesday after finally being exonerated following years of campaigning.

Peter Sullivan’s conviction for the murder of florist Diane Sindall, 21, was dramatically quashed after the Court of Appeal heard DNA evidence found at the scene did not match him

The Wirral pub where Ms Sindall worked to help pay for her forthcoming wedding

A memorial tablet on a grass verge near the scene of Ms Sindall’s murder

Lawyers have said it was ‘completely inappropriate’ that the maximum payout the 68-year-old can receive for his decades behind bars and wrongly being dubbed the Beast of Birkenhead stands at £1million.

Yesterday his brother David told MailOnline: ‘We are absolutely ecstatic that Peter has been freed but we knew 1000 per cent from the start that he was an innocent man.’

Miss Sindall’s van had broken down on her way home from a pub shift and she was walking to a petrol station to get some more fuel.

She had been working late to pay for her forthcoming wedding to David Beattie.

She was ambushed, sexually assaulted and then beaten to death, her body left partially clothed and mutilated in an alleyway where it was discovered the following day.

Mr Sullivan’s case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission after samples taken at the time of the murder were re-examined and produced a DNA profile that did not match his.

Mr Sullivan – who has learning difficulties – initially confessed to the murder, before retracting the claims.

Merseyside Police say they are ‘proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to’, saying they believe it ‘could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene’.

The DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor her fiancé at the time or hundreds of other men identified during the original investigation, the force has said.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill, head of investigations at Merseyside Police, told the BBC she wanted people in Birkenhead to ‘try and reflect on any individuals that you weren’t happy with at the time’.

Appealing for anyone to contact them ‘regardless of how insignificant you think the information is’, she added: ‘It may be that somebody has passed away and you weren’t happy with their behaviour at the time and you think they were linked.’