Peter Sullivan conviction quashed after 38 years in jail.

I don't know the ins and outs of this, but it is now possible to gain results from far smaller traces of DNA than it was in the 1980s when DNA testing came in, and to retrieve DNA from surfaces it could not be retrieved from then. This might be why it was not used then.

I have too a vague feeling that Counsel for the Defence would have had to be aware it was a possiblity and to have requested DNA testing and added it to his bill then.

But that said, it is horrible to think of someone spending years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Appalling, too, to think that the unknown murderer may have continued murdering women since and never been caught!

Thank goodness that at east is he won't have to pay Board and Lodge as was the norm until just a couple of years ago.

A man in a similar position spent 25 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. When he received his compensation (which is based on unemployment benefit - which of course he was as he was wrongfully in prison) the figure had £100,000 deducted for his 25-years of accommodation and food.

Quite unbelievable. But as I say that has now stopped.
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Hard to believe that the real killer simply stopped after one apparently random murder… Let us hope that the police actually apply some intelligence to this cold case.

I remember Keith Laverack too. It seems that if you admit guilt and say sorry, you get out in double quick time, like Leslie Grantham, but if you are innocent and deny your conviction, you can stay in forever

Yes, a terrible story, the DNA evidence could only be analysed from the original sample quite recently apparently, it's not like fingerprints.

A follow-up story highlighted that the local population might look at itself in a mirror and feel guilty, apparently the actual murderer was widely rumoured at the time, but folk up there are tainted with the belief that helping the police in any way is a total no-no, so the relevant people have never 'named names'. And that's despite the 'Crimestoppers' phone line having been available for many years.