A man jailed for more than 35 years for murder will have his conviction reviewed after DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan was convicted of the murder of Diane Sindall after she left her job in Bebington, Merseyside in August 1986 and has been in prison since the following year.

Sullivan, then 29, had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match and went out armed with a crowbar.

It was then that he passed Ms Sindall, a 21-year-old part-time florist and barmaid, as she walked towards a petrol station when – according to her belief – he beat her to death.

Sullivan was nicknamed the “Beast of Birkenhead” or “Wolfman” due to the bite marks found on the victim’s body and was unanimously found guilty.

But in Sullivan’s third attempt to overturn his conviction, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) confirmed the case had been referred to the Court of Appeal.

The CCRC said Sullivan filed a petition with the body in March 2021, citing concerns about police interviews, bite mark evidence presented at his trial and the murder weapon.

After consulting with experts, the commission said DNA information from samples taken at the time of the offense formed a profile that did not match Sullivan’s.

There may have been breaches of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the CCRC added, as Sullivan was refused initial legal representation.

Sullivan also claimed he did not have access to an appropriate adult during the interviews.

He previously filed a request with the body in 2008, raising questions about DNA evidence, but forensic experts said further testing was unlikely to reveal a DNA profile.

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In 2019, he applied to the High Court for permission to appeal his bite evidence conviction, but his application was rejected in 2021.