Former police chief Tom Baxter spearheaded the inquiry that saw Peter Sullivan wrongly convicted of the brutal killing of 21-year-old florist Diane Sindall before going on to clear detectives in the Bridgewater Four scandal
The detective who led an investigation that resulted in a man being wrongly jailed for 38 years was implicated in a second miscarriage of justice, the Mirror reveals. Ex-Superintendent Tom Baxter spearheaded the inquiry that led to Peter Sullivan being convicted of killing Diane Sindall, 21, in 1986.
Mr Sullivan, 68, had his conviction quashed this week, as reported in the Mirror yesterday, after claiming he made a false confession following abuse by Merseyside Police officers. The Mirror can now reveal Mr Baxter cleared detectives who fitted up four men for the murder of paperboy Carl Bridgewater, 13.
They were wrongly jailed for shooting Carl in Stourbridge, West Midlands, in 1978. James Robinson and cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey spent 18 years in jail before being freed in 1997 after judges quashed their convictions because of tainted evidence.
READ MORE: ‘I was jailed for 38 years for murder I didn’t commit – but I’m not angry or bitter’
Patrick Molloy died in prison in 1981, aged 53, claiming a confession had been tortured out of him. In 1991, Mr Baxter led an investigation into the Staffordshire Police probe, and found the convictions were safe.
Six years later, Lord Justice Roch told the Court of Appeal that expert evidence showed confessions made by Mr Molloy were obtained by “deceit”. However, it remains unclear if Mr Baxter was aware of evidence later given to the Court of Appeal.
We can also reveal Mr Baxter was accused of suppressing evidence of flaws in an investigation into convicted wife-murderer Eddie Gilfoyle. Documents reportedly show how Merseyside officers withheld an internal report from Mr Gilfoyle’s defence team that outlined failings by the force at the scene where Paula Gilfoyle was found hanged at her home.
Prosecutors told the jury Mr Gilfoyle tricked pregnant Paula, 32, into writing a suicide letter and then hanged her, at their home in Upton, on the Wirral, in 1992. He served almost 18 years.
Shortly before the 1993 trial, Gilfoyle’s lawyer asked police for the internal report. According to a report by an officer, Mr Baxter “felt it inappropriate to supply a copy”.
A record reportedly emerged in 2016 suggesting Mr Baxter, then head of Merseyside CID, decided to withhold the findings, pointing out he was not the senior investigating officer.
Papers belonging to Paula, but withheld from Mr Gilfoyle’s lawyers for nearly two decades, show she had previously attempted suicide.
There was no sign of Mr Baxter at his home yesterday. Merseyside Police said Mr Sullivan’s quashed conviction made no criticism of police.
Mr Sullivan, who attended the hearing this week via video link from HMP Wakefield, listened to the ruling with his head down and arms folded, and appeared to weep and put his hand to his mouth as his conviction was quashed.
In a statement read out by his lawyer he said: “I lost my liberty four decades ago over a crime I did not commit. We now know how very different the times we live in are from scientific advances, legal practice and methods of investigation and questioning by the police.
“What happened to me was very wrong but it does not detract or minimise that all of this happened off the back of a heinous and most terrible loss of life. I did not commit murder or unlawfully take the life of any person throughout the span of my own.
“As God is my witness, it is said the truth shall take you free. It is unfortunate that it does not give a timescale as we advance towards resolving the wrongs done to me, I am not angry, I am not bitter.
“I am simply anxious to return to my loved ones and family as I’ve got to make the most of what is left of the existence I am granted in this world.”