Crime

A Filipino migrant worker who has spent almost 15 years on death row in Indonesia is expected to arrive home on Wednesday after a deal was struck between Manila and Jakarta.

Mary Jane Veloso, 39, was sentenced to death after she was found guilty of drug trafficking in 2010, but has always maintained her innocence, saying she had been duped into carrying a suitcase containing drugs as she travelled to a new job abroad.

She has described the decision to allow her to return home as “a miracle”.

“For almost 15 years I was separated from my children and parents, and I could not see my children grow up,” she told Associated Press. “I wish to be given an opportunity to take care of my children and to be close to my parents.”

A former British soldier who went out to Ukraine to help in the war effort against Russia was unlawfully killed by a "comrade", a coroner has found.

Daniel Burke, of Manchester, was assisting Ukrainian armed forces but was killed far from the frontline in August 2023 by someone he knew, his inquest was told.

Manchester Area Coroner, Zak Golombeck, said Mr Burke, 36, "died with bravery and valour and was sadly killed by cowardice and dishonour".

The suspect in the killing, an Australian national, is wanted by Ukrainian police after fleeing the war-torn country, the court was told.

Abdelfetah 'Adam' Nourine, a fighter in the Ukrainian army known as "Jihadi Adam", who was not named in the inquest but is known by Greater Manchester Police, told Ukrainian police he shot Mr Burke accidentally while the two of them were practising drills 27 miles (44 km) away from the frontline.

The remains of Mr Burke, a former paratrooper, were found buried in an underground pipe at a military training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region.

"Whilst there was evidence initially presented that it was an accident, I reject that based on evidence gathered by Ukrainian authorities and Greater Manchester Police," Mr Golombeck said

"[Mr Burke] was unarmed and unable to defend himself."

Detective Sergeant Danielle Bullivant told the hearing Mr Burke set up a company called Dark Angels which was a group of former military personnel who went to the frontline to evacuate the injured.

The inquest heard he had previously travelled to Syria to fight against the so-called Islamic State group, after being "heavily affected" by the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.

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CCTV showed him spending the day with Mr Nourine, and in the late afternoon travelling to an abandoned training ground.

As part of local police investigations after Mr Burke went missing, the suspect was interviewed and gave separate versions of events, the inquest heard.

He led Ukrainian police to Mr Burke's body and told them he had accidentally killed him during a training exercise.

He claimed he had fired at least two shots - one accidentally while he was carrying Mr Burke in a training exercise and a second for reasons unknown.

The court heard a post-mortem examination found Mr Burke had been shot at least three times - in his head, lower neck and central chest.

Results of ballistics investigations carried out in Ukraine suggested it was impossible to accidentally fire the weapon, an assault rifle, Det Sgt Bullivant told the inquest.

A woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Sean “Diddy” Combs has amended her lawsuit to include allegations that she was also assaulted by Jay-Z at the same party.

The lawsuit was initially filed against Combs in October, but on Sunday the woman added Shawn Carter, the rapper and businessman known as Jay-Z, as a defendant in the civil lawsuit.

Carter is the first celebrity to be accused of sexual assault in connection to Combs.

In a statement addressed to CNN, Carter called the allegations “so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?”

Combs was indicted in September on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and prostitution related charges. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied all wrongdoing in roughly 30 civil lawsuits that have been filed against him.

The woman, who is identified as a Jane Doe, says she was 13 years old at the time she was allegedly assaulted by Combs and Carter at an after party following the Video Music Awards in 2000. The woman alleges she began to feel woozy after consuming a drink at the party and wandered into a nearby bedroom. The woman alleges Carter raped her first, followed by Combs. The woman says she hit Combs and ran out of the party, according to the amended lawsuit.

Carter was identified in the initial lawsuit as Celebrity A.

On Monday, Carter’s attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to require Doe to reveal her identity or dismiss the lawsuit.

“Mr. Carter should not have to defend himself in the brightest of spotlights against an accuser who hides in complete darkness while leveling allegations that describe the purported acts occurring in the plain sight of witnesses who could refute the plaintiff’s claims if only her identity was revealed,” the filing stated.

According to the lawsuit, Doe’s attorneys reached out to Carter to request a mediation but alleges Carter “responded to said letter by not only filing an utterly frivolous lawsuit, but by also orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying and intimidation against Plaintiff’s lawyers, their families, employees and former associates in an attempt to silence Plaintiff from naming Jay-Z.”

A judge presiding over the trial of Daniel Penny, a former Marine accused of choking a homeless man to death on a New York City subway, has dismissed a charge of second-degree manslaughter against him, after jurors failed to reach an agreement.

New York jurors still have one less severe charge of criminally negligent homicide to consider.

On the fourth day of deliberations, the 12 jurors sent two notes saying they were "unable to come to a unanimous vote" on the first count, which would be required for a conviction.

The judge sent them back to try again, but they still could not agree, prompting prosecutors to ask the judge to dismiss the manslaughter count.

Simpson’s former bodyguard claims that the infamous ex-NFLer confessed on tape to killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1994.

The alleged confession was said to be on a thumb drive that cops in Bloomington, Minn., seized from Iroc Avelli, Simpson’s ex-bodyguard, when he was arrested in an unrelated incident in 2022, TMZ reported on Tuesday.

However, police say they have no evidence to back up claims that any such recording exists.

Simpson’s former bodyguard claims that the infamous ex-NFLer confessed on tape to killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, in 1994.

The alleged confession was said to be on a thumb drive that cops in Bloomington, Minn., seized from Iroc Avelli, Simpson’s ex-bodyguard, when he was arrested in an unrelated incident in 2022, TMZ reported on Tuesday.

However, police say they have no evidence to back up claims that any such recording exists.

MIAMI — One of Colombia’s legendary drug lords and a key operator of the Medellin cocaine cartel has been released from a federal prison in the U.S. and is expected to be deported back home.

Records from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons show that Fabio Ochoa-Vasquez was released Tuesday after completing 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence.

Ochoa, 67, and his older brothers amassed a fortune when cocaine started flooding the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to U.S. authorities, to the point that in 1987 they were included in the Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires. Living in Miami, Ochoa ran a distribution centre for the cocaine cartel once headed by Pablo Escobar.

Although somewhat faded from memory as the centre of the drug trade shifted from Colombia to Mexico, he resurfaced in the hit Netflix series “Narcos” true to form as the youngest son of an elite Medellin family into ranching and horse breeding that cut a sharp contrast with Escobar, who came from more humble roots.

Ochoa was first indicted in the U.S. for his alleged role in the 1986 killing of Drug Enforcement Administration informant Barry Seal — whose life was popularized in in the 2017 film “American Made” starring Tom Cruise.

He was initially arrested in 1990 in Colombia under a government program promising drug kingpins would not be extradited to the U.S. At the time, he was on the U.S. list of the “Dozen Most Wanted” Colombia drug lords.

Ochoa was arrested again and extradited to the U.S. in 2001 in response to an indictment in Miami naming him and more than 40 people as part of a drug smuggling conspiracy. Of those, Ochoa was the only one who opted to go to trial, resulting in his conviction and the 30-year sentence. The other defendants got much lighter prison terms because most of them cooperated with the government.

To crime-ravaged New Yorkers, former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny is a hero.

But to a woke assistant district attorney, the 26-year-old is a villain.

Penny is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 death of Jordan Neely. Penny, who pleaded not guilty, allegedly used a fatal chokehold on Neely aboard an Uptown bound F train in Manhattan.

Witnesses said Neely was freaking out on the subway and terrifying other straphangers. Penny stepped in to try and quell the situation, and it spiralled out of control.

A Manhattan jury is now deliberating Penny’s fate.

“Those passengers were afraid. I’ve been on the subway system. I know what it is as a police officer to wrestle or fight with someone,” Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams said on the weekend.

“It is imperative that we look at the totality of this problem.”

Not so much for Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Dafna Yoran, who urged jurors to convict him of manslaughter on Tuesday.

This is the same prosecutor who asked for a reduced sentence for a violent mugger who murdered an 87-year-old man over $300 in 2019. She called the scheme “restorative justice.”

The victim in that case was hammered in the back of the head at an ATM. Instead of second-degree murder, the killer was convicted of manslaughter at Yoran’s behest.

Her motives align with those of soft-on-crime, George Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Yoran later claimed she “saw an opportunity for a transformative outcome” and jumped on it. It was the first use of a “transformative justice” program in a homicide case. That changed a 25-year sentence to just 10 years behind bars.

A model and her family were reportedly held captive for several hours in a shack infested with snakes and scorpions in São Paulo, Brazil.

Brazilian-born Luciana Curtis, her husband Henrique Gendre, and their 11-year-old child were approached by armed individuals and abducted as they were leaving a restaurant in an upscale São Paolo neighborhood on November 27, the New York Post reported on Monday:

Police said the suspects abducted them, forced them to transfer money, and stole their SUV before holding the family captive for 12 hours in a shack that contained a mattress, toilet, sink, and the crawling creatures.

When the couple didn’t come home, their older child, who did not accompany them to the restaurant, “alerted relatives.”

The shack was located in the Brasilandia area of São Paolo, according to the Post. The outlet noted the family was freed early Thursday.

The Post reported that as “specialist police teams” searched for the family, “the gang abandoned the family and fled,” according to police.

Police are still trying to find the suspects in the case. When they locate them, authorities plan to charge them with kidnapping, extortion, and robbery.

“Curtis, who was born in São Paulo, is the daughter of British businessman Malcolm Leo Curtis. She lives in New York but splits time between São Paulo and London,” the Post article said.

A teenager accused of killing four people while they slept appeared in a Los Angeles court to face the murder and arson charges on Tuesday, Nov. 26.

Miguel Sandoval, 19, was charged with six counts, including four counts of murder, one felony count of first-degree residential burglary with a person present, and one felony count of arson of an inhabited structure or property, according to an L.A. District Attorney Office press release.

Sandoval is accused of killing Matthew Montebello, 21, Montebello’s partner Janvi Maquindang, 21, Maquindang’s sister, Christine Aca-ac, 26, and Aca-ac’s fiancée Edwin Garcia, 24, inside their Lancaster, Calif. home on Nov. 16.

Sandoval appeared in court shirtless, per photos obtained by The Daily Mail. Per the L.A. District Attorney site, court attendees are instructed not to wear shorts, tank tops, clothing that shows their stomachs, beachwear, flip-flops, or clothing with inappropriate words or signs.

Man Fatally Stabs Wife and 3 Children Aged 10, 12 and 17 in Hawaii Apartment in Suspected Murder-Suicide Aca-ac and Maquindang’s 16-year-old sister was uninjured after she hid in the closet and called 911. The surviving family member was taken to the L.A. Sheriff’s office and said she heard the gunshots around 1:27 a.m. “She stayed in her room because she was scared, and that's when deputies were able to locate her and extract her," said LASD Lt. Steve Dejong, per ABC 7.

Around 1:30 a.m., Sandoval allegedly entered and burglarized the home while the residents were asleep. He then allegedly shot them and set the house on fire to cover-up his crimes. before fleeing the scene. He was later arrested on Nov. 21, per KTLA.___

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Three dogs were also fatally shot, according to authorities. The motivation for the murders remains unknown, and the L.A. Sheriff’s Department’s investigation is ongoing.

Montebello's mother Maria told ABC7 she recognized Sandoval’s name but never met him. Maria told the news station she only knew of him as an ex-boyfriend of one of the younger siblings in the house.

The governor of the state of Sinaloa spoke about a statement in which he referred to "meetings" with organized crime groups and authorities and clarified that he was referring to clashes.

Rubén Rocha Moya, governor of the state of Sinaloa, has responded to insinuations of a possible link between authorities and criminal groups in the state. During an appearance on a national radio program, the president flatly ruled out any meeting with drug trafficking leaders.

"I categorically deny any meeting of any authority, of any of the three levels of government with criminals. In any case, they are confrontations. Until now, what the government is doing is confronting violence and confronting it with government operations against armed civilian groups, or groups of criminals," he said during an interview on Joaquín López Dóriga's radio program. In addition, he clarified that these security actions focus on the pacification of the region.

The security context in the state remains a matter of public interest, and Rocha Moya admitted that while clashes between criminal factions have been reduced, they have not been completely eliminated. In this regard, in the radio space he said:

"Confrontations between criminal groups and also confrontations between a criminal group and the authorities have been reduced, and those have been reduced, but they have not ended. Unfortunately they occur, but less so, and that tells us that the generation of violence has been reduced."

In the context of these events, Rocha was questioned about the existence of an alleged meeting with Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda and criminal leaders in a place identified as Huertos del Pedregal. Rocha categorically denied having participated in such a meeting, commenting that he was not even invited to the alleged event on July 25.

"That version has never existed either, that I agreed to go to a meeting with these characters, neither aware of it, nor invited by any means, I was not summoned to this meeting that took place on July 25, much less to have been there; So, I was not there, nor was I invited, nor did I have any knowledge of that meeting at all, there is no paper, call, statement, that someone has invited me to that meeting, definitely, I did not know about it and much less attend," he reiterated.

Warning: This article references allegations of sexual assault.

Three of the five former NHL players accused of sexual assault stemming back to when they were members of Canada's 2018 world junior hockey team were in a London, Ont., courtroom on Monday for the start of pretrial hearings.

Dillon Dubé, Michael McLeod and Alex Formenton arrived ahead of the proceedings, which are set to last three weeks and will allow lawyers and the judge to decide which evidence will be presented to a jury. On Monday, it was decided that Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia will preside over the trial.

The three players, alongside Carter Hart and Cal Foote, face one count each of sexual assault involving a woman who says she was violated in a hotel room in London following the gala celebrating Canada's world junior hockey win.

McLeod faces an additional charge of being party to the offence. All five players are expected to plead not guilty when the trial gets underway in April. Shortly after charges were laid, the players opted for a jury trial.

A publication ban preventing the release of information is in place for the pretrail hearings; there's also a publication ban on identifying the alleged victim and two witnesses. None of the allegations have been proven in court.

The accused played professional hockey following the alleged assault. McLeod and Foote were with the New Jersey Devils, Dubé was with the Calgary Flames and Hart was with the Philadelphia Flyers. Their NHL contracts expired in July. Formenton had been signed with the Ottawa Senators, but was playing in Switzerland at the time the charges were announced.

In August, two of the five players signed contracts to play in the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

“Child sex crimes and child trafficking. How could you nominate someone with allegations of child trafficking or trafficking across state lines and having sex with a 17-year-old?” Hostin asked on the yesterday’s (Nov. 19) episode of the show.

Minutes later, Whoopi Goldberg announced that Hostin has a “legal note” to share, as she often does on the show. However, this one felt a little poorly timed after Hostin had spent air time ripping the politician apart.

“I do have a legal note. Thank you, Whoopi,” Hostin replied, before reading the note. “Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, ‘invented,’ and saying in a statement to ABC News that ‘this false smear following a three-year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism.’ The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought.”

The show then promptly went to commercial break without any further discussion about the topic.

A Florida sheriff’s deputy accused of Tasing a gas-soaked biker during a botched arrest — and sparking a fire that burned more than 75% of the man’s body three years ago — has been acquitted of negligence charges.

Osceola County Deputy David Crawford tackled victim Jean Barreto at a Wawa gas station after Barreto had allegedly run red lights, ridden on the sidewalk and sped into oncoming traffic before stopping to refuel on Feb. 27, 2022, local reports said.

Crawford shouted to his partners to turn off the gas pump during the caught-on-camera encounter, which knocked Barreto’s bike over and soaked him with gasoline.

Prosecutors said that’s when Crawford raised his Taser, fired the weapon and ignited a blaze that torched Barreto from neck to ankles.

They charged the deputy with culpable negligence for the act. But on Friday, a jury declared him not guilty after a week-long trial, according to WESH 2 in Orlando.

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The defense claimed Crawford didn’t actually shoot the Taser, but it went off on its own when he threw it to the side.

“Every single witness, every single video conclusively shows you that he never intentionally discharged that Taser,” Crawford’s attorney said at the trial’s end.

When Crawford was asked if he remembered the Taser going off either in his hand or after he tossed it, the deputy simply replied, “I have no memory of turning the safety off.”

He also said he wouldn’t have done anything differently during the arrest — even with the horrific second- and third-degree burns that covered most of Barreto’s body.

The teenage son of an Israeli diplomat is accused of intentionally driving his motorcycle into a Florida cop because he “hates waiting behind traffic,” but could have his charges dropped because of his father’s immunity, according to his attorney.

Avraham Gil, 19, appeared to be hysterically crying in his mugshot after he was arrested for striking a Sunny Isles Beach police lieutenant just after 3:30 p.m. Jan. 27.

The lieutenant was conducting a traffic stop on Collins Avenue, one of the main roadways on the Miami barrier island, when he saw Gil weaving through traffic and yelled at the teen to stop, according to WPLG.

As the cop motioned for Gil to stop, the teen reportedly continued to ride and “intentionally ran him over.”

The officer sustained an “incapacitating” injury to his left leg, but grabbed Gil off his bike and brought him to the ground, according to the outlet.

Gil, who lives in Aventura, was charged with aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer with violence, both felonies, according to court records viewed by The Post.

Gil’s father, Eli Gil, is the consul for administration at the Israeli Consulate in Miami.

A court in South Korea has found a man guilty of trying to avoid mandatory military service by deliberately gaining weight, local media report.

The 26-year-old began binge eating before his physical examination for the draft, a judge in the capital, Seoul, said. He was categorised as obese, allowing him to serve in a non-combat role at a government agency.

The defendant received a one-year suspended sentence. A friend who devised a special regimen that doubled his daily food intake got a six-month suspended sentence, the Korea Herald newspaper reports.

All able-bodied men in South Korea over the age of 18 must serve in the army for at least 18 months.

According to the Korean Herald, the defendant was assessed as fit for combat duty during an initial physical exam.

But at the final examination last year, he weighed in at over 102kg (225 lbs, 16 stone), making him heavily obese.

The man who recommended binge dieting had denied the charge of aiding and abetting, saying he never believed his friend would through with it, the newspaper adds.

NEW YORK — For six minutes, Jordan Neely was pinned to a subway floor in a chokehold that ended with him lying still. But that’s not what killed him, a forensic pathologist testified Thursday in defense of the military-trained commuter charged with killing Neely.

A New York City medical examiner determined that Daniel Penny’s chokehold killed Neely, an agitated, mentally ill man whom Penny and some other riders found threatening.

But the defense’s pathologist, Dr. Satish Chundru, told jurors that Neely’s medical records and bystander video didn’t show telltale signs of known types of fatal chokeholds.

Among the discrepancies, he said: the location and extent of bruising on Neely’s neck, and the small amount of petechiae — small red spots caused by subsurface bleeding — on his eyelids.

“In your opinion, did Mr. Penny choke Mr. Neely to death?” defense lawyer Steven Raiser asked.

“No,” replied Chundru, who has worked as a medical examiner for county governments in Florida and Texas.

He said Neely died from “the combined effects” of synthetic marijuana, schizophrenia, his struggle and restraint, and a blood condition that can lead to fatal complications during exertion.

“The chokehold did not cause death,” the pathologist said.

Penny, 26, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. His defense says the Marine veteran and architecture student was defending himself and a car full of subway riders.

Washington DC: Frozen french fries meant for hungry customers at a Wendy’s outlet lined the cavernous interiors of the semi-truck—of no particular interest to the border inspectors at first glance. The truck, however, had logged hundreds of kilometres over its scheduled route from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and the inspectors thought it warranted closer examination. Tucked away behind the fries, they discovered 120 kilograms of premium British Columbia cannabis, with an estimated street price of over $300,000.

Like Jashandeep Singh, the driver caught ferrying the ‘bud’ to Los Angeles back in 2003, ethnic-Punjabi criminal groups are recruiting hundreds of young asylum-seekers from India over 20 years later.

Ever since the arrest this week of organised crime boss Lawrence Bishnoi’s brother, Anmol Bishnoi, who is now being held at a prison in Pottawattamie, Iowa, investigators have been working to unpack a complex story involving the cross-border trafficking of migrants, narcotics cartels, assassins for hire and the Sikh separatist movement.

The Bishnoi gang—presumed to have murdered pro-Sikh separatist operative Hardeep Singh Nijjar in a hit allegedly organised by the Indian government—isn’t the largest, or most dangerous actor, though. The rival gang of Rajesh Kumar, known by the name “Sonu Khatri”, has brought in up to 100 migrants from villages around Punjab’s Nawanshahr to the United States, an Indian intelligence officer told ThePrint.

Earlier this year, the Punjab and Haryana High Court heard evidence that Rajesh’s gang members—nicknamed “Khatri key khiladi”, a wry pun invoking a similarly-named television series—had acquired dozens of fake passports using fictitious addresses in the town of Tohana in Haryana through a ring of middlemen and corrupt officials.

Growing numbers of ethnic-Punjabi migrants—many of them asylum-seekers working as truck drivers while their applications are processed—are being held on organised-crime-related charges. Gagandeep Singh, held in February, is charged with shipping 890 kilograms of cocaine, valued at $8.7 million, hidden in a cargo of agricultural equipment.

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Economist Stephen Easton calculated in 2003 that a typical $100,000 investment in a cannabis-growing greenhouse offered an over 70 percent return, even allowing for the five percent chance of being caught by police. Low prosecution rates in British Columbia were a further incentive.

For emerging ethnic-Punjabi gangs, the cannabis trade offered enormous opportunities. Early on, the fact that ethnic-Punjabis knew berry farmers on either side of the border made it easy to walk consignments across. Embedded in the trucking business in both California and British Columbia, some in the community later proved willing to offer their services to the gangs to ship cannabis southwards and bring cocaine to the north.

The phenomenon soon spread to California, too, journalist Lisa Fernandez reported in 2008, with violent gangs like the Santa Clara Punjabi Boys, Aim to Kill, and the All Indian Mob drawing members from low-income new migrant families.

Less visible, though, was another critical linkage. Top gangsters like Raminder ‘Ron’ Dosanjh and his brother Jimsher ‘Jimmy’ Dosanjh were key figures in the Sikh separatist movement, leading the now-banned International Sikh Youth Federation. Gang leader Raminder ‘Mindy’ Bhandher lived with Sikh separatist and 1985 Air India bombing accused Ripudman Singh Malik—himself later assassinated in a 2022 contract-killing.

Evidence emerged from the trial of hitman Hardeep Uppal in 2003 that the Babbar Khalsa had paid $50,000 to gangsters Ravinder ‘Robbie’ Soomel and Daljit Basran for murdering anti-Sikh separatist journalist Tara Singh Hayer, a key witness in the Air India case.

Journalist Malcolm Gay reported in 2003 that funds from the drug trade and help from gang muscle were widely suspected to have helped pro-Sikh separatist leaders, like Jaswinder Singh Jandi and Jasjeet Singh Chela, capture control of the important Fremont Gurudwara in 1996. The two men owned the business which had hired Jashandeep, the driver involved in the 2003 French Fry case. Efforts to build a case had, however, collapsed after Jashandeep fled home to India while out on bail.

Two Thais and a Myanmar citizen were arrested in Chon Buri on Thursday on charges of trafficking a 10-year-old girl from Myanmar to work as their “slave”.

The arrests were carried out by the police Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division (ATPD) and the Chon Buri office of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security after a court issued warrants.

The Thai suspects were identified only as Porntip, 65, and Saman, 50, and the Myanmar national was Naw Tha Tha Yee, according to a police source. They have been charged with conspiring to engage in human trafficking and exploiting a minor under the age of 15.

The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that began in February when a 10-year-old girl was found sleeping at a cemetery in Chon Buri.

A convicted murderer known as 'The Wolfman' who has served nearly 40 years in prison after a bride-to-be was beaten to death could get a retrial after his conviction was referred to the Court of Appeal.

Diane Sindall, 21, was killed with a crowbar after she ran out of petrol when she left her part-time job as a barmaid in Bebington, Merseyside in August 1986.

Peter Sullivan was convicted of her murder the following year after one of the biggest man hunts the area has ever seen.

The florist's injuries were so horrific they were never revealed by the police - but Sullivan gained his horrific nickname after he was convicted through bite marks found on her body that matched his dental records.

The unemployed-father-of-one had spent the day drinking heavily after losing a darts match at the Crown Hotel, before a chance encounter with Ms Sindall as she walked to a petrol station when her blue Fiat van ran out of petrol, the Liverpool Echo reports.

On Wednesday, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said that Sullivan's conviction had been referred to the Court of Appeal on the basis of DNA evidence.

In a statement the CCRC told The Mirror: 'Mr Sullivan applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in March 2021 raising concerns about his interviews by the police, bitemark evidence presented in his trial, and what was said to be the murder weapon.

'After consulting experts, the CCRC obtained DNA information from samples taken at the time of the offence.

'As a result, a DNA profile was obtained which did not match Mr Sullivan. The CCRC has now sent Mr Sullivan's conviction back to the courts.'

Samples taken at the time of the murder were re-examined and a DNA profile that did not match Sullivan was found, the commission said.

Sullivan applied to the body to have his case re-examined in 2021, raising concerns about police interviews, bite mark evidence and the murder weapon.

He claimed he had not been provided with an appropriate adult during interviews.

***Yes they are alleging that he had some condition that required him to have some sort of guardian advocate on his behalf due to not being qualified to function as his own guardian.

The CCRC added that there was evidence suggesting there were breaches in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 over police interviews, as he was not given an appropriate adult and was initially denied legal representation.

Sullivan had previously applied to the CCRC in 2008 raising questions about DNA evidence, but forensic experts said that further testing was unlikely to reveal a DNA profile.