A man who spent almost four decades in the British prison in a bartender’s murder said he was not angry or outraged on Tuesday, because his conviction for the murder was canceled for the newly available DNA evidence.

Peter Sullivan put his hand over his mouth and seemed to become emotional because the appealing court in London ordered that his certificate would be abolished after years of attempting to clean his name.

He is the longest victim of unjust conviction in the UK, said lawyer Sarah Myatt outside the court. The release came to him 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days of custody, reported the BBC. He spent about a year of that time in custody for custody while waiting for trial.

Sullivan, who watched a video of a video of Wakefield in North England, said in a statement that he was not outraged and wanted to see his loved ones.

“As God is my witness, it is said that the truth will free you,” Myatt read from the statement. “Unfortunately, it’s not that it doesn’t give a time range as we progress to solve the injustices that have been done to me. I’m not angry, I’m not outraged.”

Sullivan, 68, was convicted in 1987 for the murder of Diane Sindall in Bebington, near Liverpool in northwestern England. Spent 38 years behind bars.

Sindall, 21, a florist who was engaged to the wedding, returned home from a part -time job at the pub on Friday night in August 1986, when her van was running out of fuel, police said. She was last seen walking the road after midnight.

Her body was found about 12 hours later in the alley. She was sexually attacked and poorly beaten.

The sexual fluid found on Sindall’s body could not have scientifically analyzed until recently.

The court heard that the technology was only recently developed to the point where the seed sample, recovered from Sindall’s abdomen, could test to DNA, the BBC reported. The 2024 test found that he was not Sullivan, said defender Jason Pitter.

“The prosecution case is that it was one person. One person made sexual abuse on the victim,” Pitter said. “There are evidence here that one person was not the defendant.”

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson did not challenge the appeal and said that if DNA evidence was available at the time of the investigation, it is unthinkable that Sullivan will be prosecuted.

Merseysidea police said she had reopened the investigation because the appeal was ongoing and that she was “dedicated to everything” to find the killer.

Detective chief supervisor Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men had been examined and eliminated from a renovated investigation since 2023, the BBC reported.

“We have introduced the specialist skills and expertise of the National Crime Agency, and with their support we pass through the person to identify the person to whom the DNA profile belongs, and in the course of an extensive and painstaking tests,” she said.

The Criminal Criminal Review Commission, which examines a possible verdict, refused to send Sullivan’s case to the appeal in 2008, and the court rejected the 2019 appeal.

But CCRC again took over the case when new DNA evidence was available.

“In the light of these evidence, it is impossible to consider the appellant’s belief safe,” justice Timothy Holroyde said.

Sullivan’s sister, Kim Smith, reflected outside the court for a tribute, the case took over two families.

“We lost Petra for 39 years and at the end of the day it’s not just us,” Smith said. “Peter didn’t win, nor the Sindall family. They lost their daughter, they won’t get her back. We came back to Petra and now we have to try to rebuild life around him.”