For someone who's lost nearly 40 years of his life because of a crime he was innocent of, Peter Sullivan maintains a remarkably positive tone.
During our encounter last month, for what was his first interview since being freed from prison in May, he was cheerful and looking forward to getting to Anfield to watch Liverpool play for the opening match since he was detained in 1986.
That was the year of the brutal homicide of Diane Sindall in his birthplace of Birkenhead - an incident he said he only knew about because someone turned to him in a pub at the time and said, "allegedly there's been a murder".
When he was found guilty the following year at Liverpool Crown Court - he was condemned to a lifetime in some of Britain's highest-security category A prisons where he would be hounded by his tabloid nicknames "The Beast of Birkenhead", "River Mersey Murderer" and "The Wolfman".
Adjusting to a Transformed World
Ahead of our conversation, he was rich with anecdotes about how since his release he has had to adapt to a radically changed world.
When he was arrested, Margaret Thatcher was in Downing Street, no one had heard of the internet and Europe was still divided by the Iron Curtain.
He recalled watching the fall of the Berlin Wall from a shared television in prison.
Mr Sullivan told me how trips to the shops now show how "society has evolved" - from trying to figure out how self-checkouts operate to realising that "rather than having a cheque book, you've got it on your phone".
Technological Adjustments
His confinement means he has been unaware of the way so many facets of everyday life have transformed - comparable to someone who has been unconscious since the 1980s.
"After spending so long in prison and discovering there's no DHSS [Department of Health and Social Security, now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)] where you can pick up your money - you're thinking, 'Wow, what's going on here?'"
He now has a digital phone, after finding out doctor's appointments need to be scheduled on something he now knows is called an 'app'.
He first became knowledgeable about them when he was sitting on a bus shortly after his release and saw people twiddling with smartphones. He only understood they were phones when he saw someone put one to their ear.
Emotional Consequences
Mr Sullivan's 14,000 days in prison have also led to an inevitable sense of system dependency.
He described how after his release, one morning in his flat he returned to his bedroom and positioned himself on his bed, because he was automatically waiting for a prison officer to come and confine him into his cell.
"You've got to be at your door at a designated moment, otherwise the officers will yell at you", he said.
"I was just sitting there thinking, 'What am I doing?'"
Seeking Closure
But Mr Sullivan's hope is balanced by a longing for answers about how he came to be charged with an notorious murder that he had no part in, and a bewilderment about why he still has not had an admission of error.
"My entire life vanished", he said.
"I lost all my freedom, I lost my mother since I've been in prison, I've lost my father.
"The pain is deep because I wasn't there for them", he said.
"I cannot proceed with my life if I can't get an response off them."
"That's all I want, an apology [and to understand] the cause behind they've done this to me", he said.
Law Enforcement Response
Merseyside Police said "minimal advantage to be gained for a re-examination of this matter today" because of "the changes to investigative techniques and improvements in the law over the last 40 years".
The force did submit some of Mr Sullivan's claims to the police regulatory agency, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who will now examine his claims that officers assaulted him and intimidated to link him to other crimes if he didn't plead guilty to Diane Sindall's murder.
When asked if it would apologise, the force did not clearly address the question, but as part of a comprehensive declaration it said: "The force recognizes that there has been a significant injustice of justice in this case".
Looking Ahead
Mr Sullivan explained about his simple goal - an ambition that he said he had given up of being able to achieve at some points over his approximately 38 years behind bars.
"All I want to do now is get on with my own life and move forward as I was before, and experience freedom now".
His future may be made more manageable by government monetary award, paid to wrongly convicted people of judicial errors.
This scheme is restricted at £1.3m, a maximum which it is estimated his final compensation will get very near.
But the system is not immediate, and it is protracted.
Andrew Malkinson, whose guilty verdict for a rape he had no involvement in was dismissed in 2023, was only granted an provisional award earlier this year.
Convicted criminals who admit to their crimes and are released get a accommodation and some support regarding living expenses. Mr Sullivan, as an exonerated person, is not eligible for that help.
And so he is surviving a basic lifestyle, with his humble goals - although many consider he is a millionaire in waiting.
His legal representative, Sarah Myatt, said "there's not a figure that you could say that would be enough for forfeiting 38 years of your life".
