NOW WE HAVE TO FIND THE BEAST WHO KILLED HER

Shock & fear in community where Diane was murdered

- by PATRICK EDRICH

UNDER a crop of trees opposite the Pyramid Shopping Centre in Birkenhead, a small stone memorial has been surrounded by fresh bunches of flowers. On a note attached to a bouquet of red roses, underneath the logo for RASA Merseyside Sexual Violence Services, is a handwritten eight word message - “so sorry Diane, hope you get justice soon”.

When there has been a miscar-riage of justice as grave and significant as the one announced this week - when Peter Sullivan, now 68, finally had his murder conviction quashed after he served 38 years in a category A prison because DNA evidence definitively proved he was not the killer - it is easy to forget the first victim of the tragedy.

Diane Sindall, a florist and part-time barmaid, was a 21-year-old bride-to-be when her life was brutally snatched away at the side of Borough Road in August 1986. The brutal sexual assault and murder, which resulted in some of the most significant injuries one pathologist had ever seen, plunged the area into fear.

Neighbours eyed each other with suspicion, women refused to go out unless they were in groups and young men in the area received knocks on the door from police officers chasing whatever lead they had. The story, where a young woman was defiled by an unknown predator, “had all the ingredients of a horror story”.

That fear evaporated once Mr Sullivan, who became known as the “Beast of Birkenhead” and “Mersey Ripper”, was arrested. But now, nearly 40 years on, the community has to come to terms with the fact that the real killer walked freely among them - and they might not have been as safe as they believed they were.